Impossibilities
by AwkwardVulpix
Summary: Simon Lane and Lewis Brindley, the saviors of Minecraftia, find themselves in a strange world. Can they get out? Or will the mysterious Baron von Schadenfreude put an end to them permanently?
1. Portals

Impossibilities

Chapter One

Portals

()()()

"Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Yogscast!" Lewis Brindley said, in his usual cheery voice. They were shooting a new Minecraft mod spotlight this time, for a beta that they had received in their e-mail. It contained instructions on how to build a new sort of portal that would "take them to a land of magic and wonder". It had been some time since they had beaten Israphel, and had mostly taken to doing mod spotlights and other games.

"Hello!" Simon Lane responded, in his deep dwarven sort of voice.

"Today, we're going to be looking at a mod we received in our email, that somebody asked us to test out, to make sure that it worked, so, uh, let's get started! Simon, do you have the stuff?"

"Right here." Simon went through his entire hotbar, showing the various wool and glowstone blocks in his possession, including a special new one.

"Um, Lewis, what the hell is this?" Simon asked, showing the viewers a rainbow-patterned one.

"That's a rainbow block. You can make it by, uh, putting the colors of a rainbow into the crafting box to make a dye, and then use the dye to make that new block for the portal. I just used Invedit."

"Brilliant." Simon said. "So, can I just put these down in any order, or is there a special way to put them?"

"Yeah, actually, you have to arrange them very specifically."

"How so?"

"Well, starting from right here," Lewis moved his avatar to where he wanted the portal to be placed, "Put down a purple block." Simon did so. "Then a black one to the left of that, and then put down a block of glowstone."

"Wait, what are we doing? What kind of portal is this? Where will this lead?"

"Well, the creator said he didn't want to ruin the surprise, so I don't know." 

"Well, this is a brilliant idea, then."

Lewis chuckled. "I guess this might not be the best idea…"

"Oh, whatever. Now what?"

"Going up from that glowstone block, put down a yellow one, then a pink one." Simon did so, and waited for the next instruction.

"Okay, now still going up, a blue, that rainbow one, and a glowstone block at the top."

They continued building the portal structure, which followed this pattern: A white block, a purple block, a glowstone block, then down from that, an orange block, a yellow block, two pink blocks, and a glowstone to finish it off.

"Well, what do you think, Simon?" Lewis asked, staring at it.

"It's the most hideous thing I've ever seen." Simon's comment regarding the portal caused Lewis to burst out laughing. "I mean, where the hell would something like this even lead to?"

"We might as well find out. So, uh, now all we have to do is set it on fire."

"But it's made of wool."

"Just set it on fire."

"Fine." Simon switched his flint and steel to the hotbar, and walked to the portal. "Here goes." He right-clicked the purple block on the bottom, and immediately, a hideous multicolored swirl activated in between all of the blocks.

"Oh, that's just the icing on the ugly cake, isn't it?" Simon asked, prompting another laugh from his friend. "Seriously, this has got to be the most… horrendous thing I've ever seen! It's just _awful_!"

"It is pretty horrid. Come on, let's see where it goes."

"If this is what the portal looks like, I don't want to see where it takes us."

"Oh, come on, Simon."

Simon groaned. "Fine."

"So, anyway, the email said we had to be in the portal at the same time for it to work in SMP."

"That's strange," Simon noted.

"Yeah, it does seem a bit strange. So, uh, how about you go in first, and then I get inside with you."

"Fine." Simon reluctantly moved to the portal, and jumped inside.

"Okay, here I come." Lewis jumped into the portal, and the world began shifting around as a new one was spawned. But the Minecraft world wasn't the only one that was warping. The real world itself was warping around the two friends, in perfect simultaneity.

"Lewis, what the flying fuck is going on?" Simon screamed in terror.

"I don't know! Something's happening to the…"

He never finished his sentence. At that moment, they both blacked out, a low WHUMP sound being the last thing they heard.

()()()

Simon was the first to wake up, and immediately, he knew something was wrong. The world seemed to be colored like a cartoon, and his own body felt quite strange. In fact, it just felt outright _incorrect_, as if it shouldn't have existed like it did.

"Lewis?" He asked. Nobody answered, so he tried to get up. Immediately, he fell over, since he tried to stand up on his hind legs, when he should have used all four. Four? That couldn't have been right. Humans have two legs. Animals have four. But no matter how much he tried to deny it, he realized he indeed had four legs. He tried to stand up again, this time, putting all four hooves on the ground. He just barely managed it. His head was starting to clear up, and he suddenly remembered what had happened.

"LEWIS!" He shouted, turning around. Right in front of him, Lewis was sprawled out on the ground. But it wasn't Lewis; at least, not his body. Rather than two legs, he had four, just like Simon did. His fur was colored red, and he had a black tail and mane, just like a horse. The proportions were completely off, though; he seemed little compared to a normal horse. His head was also strange; rather than the long snout of a horse, his only extended a few inches out before going almost perfectly flat. A strange emblem was on his flank; a Minecraft styled bow and arrow. Even stranger, a horn was on his forehead, like a unicorn of some manner. He still had his glasses on, however, along with a small shirt that had the Star Trek symbol on it.

"Huh?" He said, trying to get up. "Where…am I?" He got to all four of his feet, or hooves, rather, and looked at Simon. He screamed.

"Simon, what the hell happened to you?"

Lewis was seeing Simon as completely different. He had the same build as Lewis did, minus the horn. His fur was brown, and the color of his mane and tail was a dark ginger color. He had a scraggly, rough beard coming off of his chin, through the fur, with two braids in it. He was wearing a cross-belt on his body, along with four iron boots and an iron helmet to complete the look of dwarviness. Like Lewis, he still had his glasses, although they were quite dirty looking, and a symbol on his rear, of a Minecraft diamond pick and shovel arranged as an X.

"Lewis, what the hell is going on here?"

"I don't know, friend. You look like a…miniature pony, or something."

With that statement, a stunning realization hit them both.

"Well, that's just fucking brilliant." Simon said, raising his voice. "First, we build the ugliest thing in Minecraft history, and then we get turned into My Little Ponies. Goddamn it!"

"Hey, watch your language!" A female, Texan sort of voice called out. "We don't take kindly to that sort a talk 'round here!"

They looked around, and then saw her: An orange female pony with yellow hair, wearing a cowboy hat and a scrunchie on her tail and another on her mane. The symbol on her rear seemed to be a group of apples in various colors.

"Who are you?" Lewis asked, stepping back.

"I'm Applejack. Who are you fellers?"

"Uh…" Lewis didn't really know what to say to her.

"I'm Simon. He's Lewis."

"Simon and Lewis, huh? You folks ain't from around these parts, are ya?

"Not really." Lewis said. "In fact, we aren't from the same…dimension or universe, or whatever. We're not even ponies, really." Lewis was still horribly confused, Simon even more so.

"What?"

"Let me put it this way." Lewis cleared his throat. "We were performing a scientific experiment,"

"What?" Simon asked in bewilderment. "No we weren't."

"Well," Lewis whispered, so Applejack didn't hear, "If I told her we were building the gaudiest portal possible in Minecraft, she would have no idea what we're talking about."

"Fine, continue."

"Anyway, we were building a teleportation device, but something went awry, and now we're here."

Applejack paused to consider the facts. "Well, that's mighty strange."

"Yeah, we've heard." Lewis said. "So, could you answer a few questions?"

"Sure."

"Okay, first, where the he…"

Applejack gave him a dirty look, as if to say, 'don't say it'.

"I mean…where are we, exactly?"

"Why, you're in Equestria. More specifically, you're in Sweet Apple Acres, the best apple farm this side of Canterlot!"

"Oh, brilliant." Simon mumbled. "We're in some apple farm with a…redneck cowboy horse."

"What was that?" Applejack demanded angrily.

"Nothing! Just…talking to myself, you know."

She stared at him for a moment, before shaking it off. "Next question?"

"What are these symbols on our butts?"

"Those are your cutie marks!"

"Oh, come on!" Simon shouted.

"Hey, that ain't a bad thing. That symbolizes what you're good at in life. For example, that pick and shovel must mean you're good at mining, right?"

"I…guess you could say that. Lewis, a word?"

"What?"

Simon forcibly turned him around and began whispering to him.

"Lewis, we need to get the _hell _out of here, wherever it is."

"How? The portal's missing."

"I know that, you idiot! Does it matter? There must be some way out. I mean, we're in a land that's literally called Equestria, and we're talking to some cowgirl twit that just seems to blindly accept anything that comes her way! For god's sake, you have a horn, Lewis! You're a goddamn unicorn!"

Simon turned back around, as did Lewis.

"Sorry about that," Simon apologized, feigning politeness. "We just had to have a little discussion."

"So, uh, why is it that I have a horn, and neither of you have one?" Lewis further questioned.

"Well, that horn means that you can use magic."

Lewis bit his lip. "Magic?"

"Yep."

"Oh, come on!" Lewis shouted in burning atheistic rage. "Magic can't exist! It's not physically possible for magic to happen! It completely violates every facet of basic science! In fact, it…"

"Lewis, we're in a world of multicolored talking ponies. I don't think your…Dawkins atheist rants are going to work here."

Lewis was thoroughly taken aback by this statement. "Excuse me?"

"What are you two talking about now?" Applejack asked, not even really caring.

"I don't know," Simon responded. "Listen, is there anybody around that can help us? At all?"

"Well, Twilight Sparkle might be able to help you out."

"Now who the hell is that?" Lewis asked.

"Hey, what did I say about language?"

"Don't mind him." Simon paused for a moment. "So, where could we find this 'Twilight Sparkle'?"

"Well, she's in Ponyville. Just head to the center of town, to the library. She lives in it."

"So, what does she look like?"

"You'll know her when ya see her! She'll probably be reading something." With that Applejack ran off, to complete the daily harvest.

"Well, that was outstandingly helpful." Simon quipped.

"I'll be able to help you out more." A voice, deep and gravelly, called from behind them.

"Who's there?" Lewis asked, both he and Simon turning around. The gray colt standing there was somewhat different looking, mainly due to the fact that his mane had been completely shaved off; however, his tail remained, as did a small, Billy Mays sort of beard-moustache-sideburn combination. In addition to that, he had two relatively small wings tucked away behind his shoulders. His cutie mark was, strangely enough, a bulls-eye.

"Er, excuse me for asking, but who are you exactly?" Simon asked.

"I'm the guy who's going to save your life. Call me Jack."

"Um…okay?"

Jack didn't even bother to answer, and merely ran off in the other direction. Simon and Lewis glanced at each other skeptically, and then followed him anyway, hoping that he would lead them to the town, and therefore, Twilight Sparkle.

()()()

However, the first pony they met up with was _not_ Twilight Sparkle. They only _wished_ it had been Twilight, but as stated before, it wasn't. The first they crossed paths with was an extremely pink pony, with an outstandingly messy mane and tail, that, appropriately, resembled cotton candy. Her cutie mark was three balloons surrounded by confetti, and her name was Pinkie Pie.

She was currently in the town center, handing out free samples of various confectioneries. When she saw the three new ponies walking around, she immediately gave out an excited gasp and ran away, leaving the table of various sugary baked goods.

"What's her problem?" Lewis asked.

"Ah, don't worry about it," someone behind them said. "She always does that when there are new ponies. Hope you like parties."

"Hello, Rainbow Dash," Jack said, turning around. Simon and Lewis followed suit, and saw who Jack must have been referring to: a blue pony with a small wing on each of her shoulders, like Jack. Strangely, her hair and mane were not one consistent color like most of the other ponies; they were, rather, all the colors of the rainbow. Her cutie mark was a thundercloud with a large rainbow-colored bolt coming out of it, although a few colors were missing.

"Wait a second, Lewis," Simon said, looking at Rainbow Dash's overall color scheme.

"What is it, friend?"

"Look at the color of her fur."

"It's blue. So?"

"What color is her mane?"

"Uh, it's a rainbow…oh."

The realization of this hit them both. All of the wool blocks they had used for the portal matched the main characters coloration schemes almost exactly.

"Are you kidding me?" Lewis asked. "That was what those wool blocks were?"

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash asked, deeply bewildered by the conversation. "What are you two talking about?"

"Allow me to explain," a voice from behind Rainbow Dash said. This was a new voice, and it didn't seem properly natural. It sounded vaguely Norwegian, but was flat, and lacked any real sort of inflection.

"Oh, damn it," Jack said, immediately recognizing who it was.

"Ah, yes, the two 'heroes' of Minecraftia," the voice said. "Perhaps you would like to get better…acquainted?"

"Who the hell are you?" Lewis asked, trying to look around Dash's shoulder. He didn't have to, as the owner of the voice stepped out into the open, revealing who he was.

He certainly did make an impression, mostly by lacking the thing that would most make an impression on a pony: his cutie mark. His fur was exactly the same color as Rainbow Dash's, but his mane and tail were an ugly brownish color. Perhaps his most disturbing feature was that his eyes were pure white.

"That," Jack stated flatly, "is Herobrine."

Lewis and Simon's eyes widened. Standing in front of them was Notch's dead brother, in the flesh. The same person whose facility they had blown up quite some time ago.

"Yep, that certainly is my name." Herobrine pushed Dash out of the way, and walked towards the two Englishmen.

"And you two are the guys that blew up the room in my facility. It took me a week to fix that, you know," he chuckled, before going dead serious again. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you! I'm glad the mod worked exactly as it was meant to."

"You mean, you did that to us?" Lewis shouted angrily.

"Yes, indeed I did. It wasn't easy, but…"

()()()

As Herobrine continued to talk, a man sitting in a sort of control room watched on a large television screen. He was sitting in a red velvet armchair, clasping his hands in front of his face. On the mahogany table beside him sat a cup of Earl Grey tea. As for what he looked like, well, I'm afraid that will have to wait; the room was quite dark, and the only light came from the soft glow of the screen he was fixated on.

"Yes," he said, in a cold, high-class British voice, sharper than a steel knife. "Perfect. Although it is rather surprising that Mr. Edwards hasn't realized Herobrine is a mere…" He tapped his fingers together a few times before completing the thought, "distraction."

He began to laugh quietly, before pressing a small button underneath the mahogany table, which activated a hidden intercom system.

"Yes, sir?" A soft voice asked from a miniature speaker within the man's ear. The man waited a few moments to answer, considering the current situation, then decided what to do.

"Send in the flyers," he said, smiling a terrible smile. "We shall soon see how good Mr. Brindley and Mr. Lane_ really_ are."

()()()

As you can tell, this is going to be a big one. Next chapter: The reveal of the man in the armchair! The reveal of who Jack is! Origin stories and more! Until then, AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	2. Revelations

Impossibilities

Chapter Two

Revelations

()()()

"Send in the flyers," he said, smiling a terrible smile. "We shall soon see how good Mr. Brindley and Mr. Lane _really_ are."

"Yes, sir," the man on the other end replied.

"Good, good." The man sitting in the armchair turned the intercom off, and fixated himself back on the television screen. "Have at it, then, good sirs."

()()()

"Going even further, I also…" Herobrine continued, not even having stopped to breathe at any point whatsoever.

"Okay, will you seriously please stop talking?" Simon asked, trying to interrupt Herobrine's spiel.

"Well, excuse _me_ for trying to offer an explanation."

"But you haven't even said anything, really!" Lewis replied.

"Yeah, well…"

"What are you all talking about?" Rainbow Dash demanded, walking back to Herobrine.

She was interrupted by what seemed to be the sound of several jet engines screaming across the sky. Obviously, however, ponies do not have jet engines, so there was only one other thing it could have been.

"The Wonderbolts? Here?" Rainbow Dash was simultaneously excited and bewildered; they never did unannounced performances. It could have been practice, but Dash had never seen them leave Canterlot. She looked up to confirm whether or not they were, in fact, the Wonderbolts. There were four of them, and from their current height, they certainly appeared to be. But as they did a nosedive towards Simon and Lewis, it became obvious that they were something else entirely. She realized with dread that they were the Shadowbolts, a group of false apparitions she met in the Everfree Forest that tried to stop the ponies journey to defeat Nightmare Moon. Their outfits were spandex, and closely resembled the real-life Blue Angels.

"The Shadowbolts? But…how?"

"Who are the Shadow…" Lewis' question was interrupted when two of them plucked him off the ground and flew off with him at great speed.

"Lewis!" Simon shouted, before almost instantly suffering the same fate.

"Damn it!" Jack shouted, bringing his wings out. "They got them! Rainbow Dash, follow me. We need to save them!" He flew off after them, leaving Herobrine and a quite bewildered pegasus.

"Uh…wait up!" Rainbow Dash put her wings out, and sped off into the air, not knowing what else to do.

"Yeah," Herobrine said, "you do that."

()()()

"Lewis, what the hell do we do?" Simon yelled, his voice shaking with fear.

"I don't know!" Lewis replied, his eyes completely shut to not see what was going on below him. He opened them for just a moment, and closed them immediately, having seen what was going on below. They were flying at least fifty miles per hour, several hundred feet in the air, and were very afraid for their lives.

"Wait, Lewis, you can use magic, can't you?"

"I…well, yeah, but I don't know anything about it!"

"Improvise!"

"Uh…uh…" Lewis began thinking as hard as he could. Surprisingly, this had an effect: a bright light, similar to burning magnesium. This was enough to momentarily blind the flyers, causing them to release the two ponies. This did not particularly improve their situation, as they were now hurtling towards the ground at a rapid pace. They closed their eyes, started to scream, and expected the worst to happen…but it didn't. Rainbow Dash and Jack had flown under them just in time to prevent them from turning into a large red puddle.

"What?" Simon was utterly incredulous. "We're alive?"

"You're welcome," Jack said, floating slowly to the ground.

"I thought they were just apparitions or something. How did they come back?" Rainbow Dash asked, regarding the Shadowbolts.

"I guess Baron Von Schadenfreude just liked the idea…" Jack responded.

"Wait, who?" Simon had never heard of anyone named Schadenfreude, baron or otherwise.

Jack sighed. "We need to get to Twilight Sparkle. I'll explain everything there. Just follow me…again."

He started to walk off, and the three others followed him. They did not realize somebody was watching them…

()()()

"Yes," the man hidden in shadows said, "perfect. The Shadowbolts performed their jobs exceptionally well, all things considered."

The man got out of his chair, and switched the television off, plunging the room completely into darkness.

"My, it's dreary in here. Lights!"

At his voice command, the lights turned on, revealing exactly who the man was; a tall, thin, older looking gentleman. He was wearing a perfectly formed tuxedo of the finest threads in the world, with ruby studded buttons and cufflinks. His oxford shoes were of the best possible black leather, highlighted by 24-carat gold trim and lacing. His bowler hat was of similarly perfect black leather, although it lacked any gold trim. Perhaps the most striking item on his person was the carved ruby, gold trimmed, pince-nez monocle over his right eye. Overall, he easily gave off the impression that he was a man of wealth and taste.

"Much better. Now, then, to business."

The man walked out of the room with a dignified gait, into a hallway with several other doors in it. Some of them were placed so close together that it shouldn't have been possible for them to contain rooms of any reasonable size.

"Now, which room was that portal in? Oh, yes, the one directly opposite the aeroplane hangar." He took the door to his left, revealing a large control room. Several men in labcoats were entering various things into a large metal circle, with a bizarre white swirl contained within. It was obviously some sort of portal device, although how it worked was anyone's guess. One of the scientists, a bald, thin man, left what he was doing and walked to the man in the tuxedo.

"We have coordinates entered, my lord," he said, in a gritty Russian accent. "It is ready when you are."

"Good. Soon enough, they will know the name of," the man paused for effect, "Baron Vlad Klaus Von Schadenfreude."

"Will you require your blade?"

"No, I do not believe that is necessary." Without another word, Schadenfreude walked through the portal, immediately being teleported to a faraway land…

()()()

"Spike, did you find that book I asked for?"

If you've been paying attention, or have watched My Little Pony, you will know exactly who I'm talking about. If you have done neither, well, you really don't have much business being here. Out of courtesy, though, I'll give you a description of her. Her name was, if you haven't guessed, Twilight Sparkle, and no, she isn't a vampire. Her name matched her appearance, though: violet fur, and a darker purple for the mane, which was actually very close to black. A single pink streak ran through it, which was rather jarring. In addition, she had a horn allowing her to use powerful magic. The 'Sparkle' part of her name came in at her cutie mark: a diamond-shaped sparkle.

"Spike?" She asked again.

"Hold on!" An unseen, yet clearly male voice responded. Most people would pin it at about ten years of age; this would be a very accurate guess.

"Spike! I really need that book!"

"Wait, I found it!"

Quickly after this announcement, a rather small purple dragon with a sea green belly and normal green spines walked in, holding a tome of some esoteric knowledge.

"Oh, thank you." Using her magic telekinesis, Twilight picked up the book and turned to a page in the middle to locate…something. She didn't get very far before a knock on the door interrupted her study.

"Spike, could you get that?" she asked, not entirely paying attention.

"Sure thing!"

He walked over to the door and pulled it open, instantly being confronted with three ponies he didn't recognize, along with Rainbow Dash.

"Uh…can I help you?" Spike asked warily.

Jack stepped forward. "May we come in? We need some help."

"Sure?"

"Oh, hello," Twilight said, only half-aware of her surroundings, if even. "Where is that passage? I know it's in here somewhere."

"Try page two-hundred and seven," Jack said nonchalantly.

"Hm?" Twilight turned to that page, and found what she was looking for: a spell related to the teleportation of objects. "Oh, thank you!" She started reading the passage, before realizing something very important. "How did you know what page that was on?"

"I know many things," Jack answered. "I also know that if you don't help me, Equestria will be doomed."

"What?" Twilight shut the book in surprise and let it drop. "What do you mean?"

"Allow me to explain. Simon, Lewis, Dash, get in here. You all need to hear this."

"Okay, what are you talking about?" Dash couldn't figure out what he was saying. Doomed? Something doomed Equestria every other week.

"I said I'd explain. Remember the Shadowbolts that attacked us?"

"I'd rather not," Lewis said.

"Well, those weren't the originals. They were clones, created by Baron Von Schadenfreude."

"Well, who's that, then?"

"Ah, sorry, I got ahead of myself. First, I have to say this. Twilight, Dash, both of you are _technically_ fictional characters."

"But…I'm real!" Dash insisted.

"Yes, you are. But in another universe, the one I came from, your story and many others are considered to be just that; stories, though they really happened, in the according universe."

"Whoa..." Dash said, completely amazed. Was he telling the truth? If so, a lot of people knew who she was. That would certainly be awesome.

"There are hundreds of such 'fictional' universes. I had a great interest in many of them. I was not what anybody would call average; I had received training from some of the greatest martial artists in the world. Then, one day, I found a letter in my apartment. It didn't have a stamp, or a return address, or anything distinctive."

"What did it say?" Twilight asked.

"It said that I had been chosen by the gods of fiction to protect these universes from destruction by a god that had been struck down from his throne. He was a terrible evil, and tried to kill the other gods and seize their power, but he failed when he was struck down by an ancient weapon that was later locked away to prevent it getting into the wrong hands."

He paused as he attempted to recall the next events.

"After he was defeated, he went into hiding, and forged himself a terrible weapon, capable of defeating the one that defeated him. Using what little magic power he had left, he went to various universes, and received training. Eventually, he was able to regain his power, and started forming a team of people he met on his travels. He then gave himself a new name: Baron Vlad Klaus Von Schadenfreude. When the gods received word that he was back, they formed a team of their own, which I was to be the leader of."

"But…why you?"

"I was courageous. I was strong. It also helped that I never missed a shot with any weapon. I've already gotten some people on my team, and the Baron was worried, so he started seeing if he could draw people in from the 'real' universe, the same one I came from. Evidently, it worked."

"So…Herobrine is working for the Baron?" Lewis asked.

"Yeah, and he's not the only one. He wanted to add you to his ranks, mostly as powerful cannon fodder. 'Real' people can't be hurt as easily in fictional universes, especially ones they're familiar with."

Jack paused again.

"Simon Lane and Lewis Brindley. Each of you worked together to tell a great story. Rainbow Dash, your courage and willingness is all but unmatched by anybody, even me. For this, I would like you to join my team: The Protectors."

Everybody else stared at him for a few moments, completely incredulous for various reasons.

"That's…not possible!" Twilight said. "We're fictional, and at the same time _not_ fictional?"

"Hey, what about _our_ fiction?" Spike demanded.

"I'd…rather not get into that, it gets extremely complicated."

"Indeed it does,"a cruel, sharp voice said from behind them.

"Oh, damn." Jack turned around, knowing exactly what to expect. There he was, wearing the same ruby monocle and bowler hat. His fur was darker than midnight, and his mane was redder than blood. It seemed impossible, but he possessed wings _and_ a horn simultaneously. It was thought that only those of royal origins could have them both, and he certainly was not of royal origins. His cutie mark was quite disturbing and strange to the ponies: a human skull and crossbones, splattered with red. He was wearing a suit much like the one he wore normally, although it had a gap to show his cutie mark. He was not, however, wearing any shoes.

"Surely Jack has told you all about me?" He asked, smiling.

"What…how do you have wings and a horn? That's not possible for a normal pony!" Twilight insisted.

"Ah, yes, Twilight, but you see, I am far from normal. My magic power surpasses even yours. Dare I say it, it's greater than Celestia's!"

He began laughing, and used his magic to pull out a golden pocket watch.

"Oh, dear, I'm running late. I suppose I'll deal with you later; I wouldn't want to stand up a royal, now, would I?"

Still laughing, he flew out an open window, heading directly for Canterlot.

"What does he mean, stand up a royal?" Simon asked, his voice wavering.

"I think, don't quote me on this, he'll try to dethrone, as in murder, Princess Celestia and Luna, and seize control of Equestria, as in plunge it into an eternal dark hellscape."

Twilight gasped, as did Rainbow Dash. "What? _Murder?_ This is impossible! Something must be done! The princess must be warned right away!"

"Don't get your saddle in a twist, Twilight. I've stopped him from doing things like this before." Then, under his breath, he whispered, "Barely."

"And I'm here to help!" Yet another new voice, this was an offensively exaggerated thick Cockney dialect, almost uninterpretable in it's form.

"Who are you?" Dash asked, her legs shaking quite violently.

"I'm Electrical Beast, AKA Adam, AKA the Jolteon of protecting fictional works!"

"We're doomed." Clearly, Twilight did not have high hopes.

()()()

Yes, EB is a member of the Protectors. Next time, the first battle! Until then, AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	3. Dangers

Impossibilities

Chapter Three

Dangers

()()()

"We're doomed." Twilight clearly did not have much hope.

"Well, if that's the attitude you have, we probably are!" Adam continued. "Uh, Jack, can you see me where I am right now?"

"No, I can't. Where are you?"

"Er, hold on. Teleport!"

Instantaneously, Adam appeared in front of them without a puff of smoke, as was normal for a teleport in this world. He certainly looked like an electrical beast; his bright yellow fur that was standing on end and his white Einstein-like hair made it evident that he was flowing with energy. The rest of his features made him out to be incredibly British, what with his massive top hat, and his monocle, and his cutie mark being a steaming cup of tea.

"Heya, Jack. I haven't seen you for a while! How's it been?"

"Uh…where were you just now?" Spike asked.

"That doesn't matter." Jack said, "What does matter is that we need to get to Canterlot _now_. Rainbow, you follow me. Adam, teleport Simon, Lewis and Applejack after us. Twilight, Spike, you stay in case Herobrine attacks the town. We'll need all the help we can get."

"Uh, how, exactly, are we gonna do that?" Dash asked. "We can't just waltz right into Canterlot like it's nothing."

"Watch me." Without another word, Jack flew off, following the Baron.

"Uh, wait up!" Dash followed suit, leaving Lewis in the dust.

"Alright, guys, you heard him. Grab my hoofs and I'll teleport you there!"

"Um, that's impossible, isn't it?" Twilight was familiar with teleportation, and every book on the subject she had read confirmed that a pony could only teleport him or herself, and no one else.

"Not for me, it ain't! I've been practicing my teleports, and I can manage up to five at once now!"

"That's very…impressive!"

"Thank you. Now, then, let's do it!"

Adam walked over to Simon and Lewis, and without warning, rested his front legs on their shoulders.

"Teleport!" He shouted, immediately sending them right to where he guessed Jack and Dash would land.

()()()

While Adam was doing that, Jack and Dash were still on their way to Canterlot, only about a quarter mile away from the glorious, shining mountainside castle.

"Stop." Jack said, flying in place.

"What is it?"

"Down there." He gestured towards the main entrance gate, where two white pegasi in pseudo-Roman armor were standing. "Guards. I'll handle them. Go hide in that cloud, count to sixty and then fly down."

She nodded, and flew away into the cloud that Jack gestured at.

"I hope this works." Jack stopped flapping his wings, allowing himself to fall right in front of the guards. Immediately, they…did nothing.

Hello," Jack said nonchalantly. "May I be granted access?"

The guards were unwavering, as if they were statues.

"Um…hello?"

Again, the guards did a grand total of zip.

"Oh, so that's your game, eh? Well, then, I'll just let myself in."

He began walking forward, eyeing the guards. They continued standing there, doing nothing, as if they were statues.

By the time Jack got through the gate, they had finally gotten out of their stances and attacked him. I'm kidding of course; they didn't do anything.

"Something's wrong here."

"You're telling me," Dash said, flying down next to him. "Why are they just…standing there?"

"Guys!" Adam said, walking towards them. "The Baron's done something! Everyone's frozen in time!"

"What?" Dash looked around. "Where are those other two guys? And the Baron?"

Literally a split-second after she asked the question, a large explosion blasted out of the central tower, which was where Celestia's room was located.

"Well, there's the Baron. I think Simon and Lewis got separated somehow in the teleport."

"Damn it!" Jack shouted. Without wasting any time, he flew towards the tower, followed by Rainbow Dash. Adam teleported to where he thought they were heading, the source of the explosion, but they were still missing two allies…

()()()

"Lewis, where the hell did Adam go?" Simon asked his friend, standing next to him. They were in the central courtyard, where several other ponies were frozen in place like statues. Adam was nowhere to be found.

"Why is everybody frozen like this?" Lewis asked, poking one of them.

"Maybe…maybe the Baron's done something to them!" Simon said, pretending to be afraid with his fake girly voice.

"Maybe."

Then, a powerful explosion shook the ground they were standing on; Simon and Lewis looked to the source of it, and saw a large tower with smoke pouring out of it.

"Lewis, what the hell was that?"

"I don't know!" Lewis shouted. "Should we check it out?"

"I think that's a really shit idea, Lewis."

"Well, if we're going to protect fiction or whatever that was, we should probably be willing to take risks."

"Okay, then, you look, and I'll stay here and stand guard."

Lewis frowned. "Simon!"

"Oh, come on, Lewis! You have magic!"

"That I don't even know how to _use_."

"Fine," Simon groaned, clearly not excited. They started walking over to the tower that had blown up, quite frightened of what they would find.

()()()

A few minutes later, Simon and Lewis were at the apparent source of the explosion. Although they expected Adam, Jack and Rainbow Dash to be there, they were nowhere to be found. The only pony there was the Baron Von Schadenfreude himself.

"Oh, crap," Lewis whispered.

"See, I told you this was a bad idea!"

"Ah, hello, gentlemen!" Schadenfreude said, in a slow, crawling voice. "I'm afraid I must bid you ado. I've already sent your friends twenty years into the future, where it is obvious that I should rule."

"You did _what?" _Simon asked, enraged.

"Oh, yes. This explosion was only meant as a lure, to get you all out of my hair for the time being. Once I send you after the rest of them, I will personally kill Celestia and Luna while they are frozen in place, and seize their magic power. Until then, cheerio!"

His horn began to light up, and before either of them could get out of the way, Simon and Lewis were surrounded by light, and flung through the fabric of space-time…

()()()

"Wait, Jack, there they are!"

That was the first thing either of them heard when they came to.

"Huh?" Lewis was the first to his hooves. Looking around, he immediately knew something was very, very wrong, so he kicked Simon to wake him up.

"What? Yogscast? Schadenfreude? Portal?"

"Simon, get up! You need to see this!"

Simon didn't bother to get up, but he opened his eyes and looked around, and had an immediate feeling of dread. They appeared to be just outside of Twilight Sparkle's house, a tree/library sort of construction, but it was in an utterly detestable state, as were the rest of the buildings, to the point where even getting near them presented a hazard to life and limb. The ground was so covered in litter, the pavement below it was practically redundant, and the sky was a smoky black as opposed to the usual cheery blue color, because of horrendous air pollution. A cacophonous symphony of wailing sirens, collapsing buildings and screams of terror constantly played in the background. It seemed a cynical, overwrought parody of My Little Pony developed by some forty-year-old who hates the concepts of happiness and any fiction just being pleasant in general.

"Lewis, what the fuck happened here?"

"I'll tell you what the fuck happened here," Jack began, "When the Baron put us into the future, he killed Celestia and Luna without any difficulties, and ruled over this place for the rest of the time. I should have known that goddamn explosion was a goddamn trap!"

"Uh…" Rainbow Dash was not used to language this strong. In fact, she wasn't used to bad language at all; even Gilda at her worst never talked like that.

Jack sighed. "Excuse my language. It was just so _obvious…_"

"What the hell?" Somebody unseen asked, in a teenage sort of voice. It seemed to be coming from what was once Twilight's house. "Get off of my property before I gutshoot you!"

"Your property!" Rainbow shouted defensively. "Says who?"

"Says me!" The owner of the voice walked out, revealing who he was; a large, purple, snake-like dragon with green spines and small wings coming off of his shoulders. Although he was evidently much older, and, as mentioned previously, had wings, it was obviously none other than Spike. Quite worryingly, he was holding a shotgun, and was walking forward with it pointed straight at them. When he saw Dash, Jack, Lewis, and Simon standing there, he stopped dead in his tracks, and allowed his gun to fall out of his hands.

"Dash? Is…is that you?"

He dropped to his knees, and stared at them all for a few moments.

"It's…been so long… I thought you were all dead…"

"Spike, what happened here?"

"The Baron…when Luna and Celestia died, he took control, and did all of…this." He gestured around, clearly implying that the apocalyptic wasteland was entirely the Baron's fault.

"Oh, man…" This was a lot for Dash to handle, obviously. Her home, the only one she'd ever known, had been turned into a disastrous horror. "Where's Twilight? And the others?"

"The Baron…took them away…I haven't seen them. I don't know if they're even alive anymore."

Suddenly, his face clenched up in brutal pain. He leaned over, and slowly fell to the ground. Behind him was standing the baron, who hadn't aged a day from when they last saw him. He thoroughly stood out from the discord of his surroundings; his wing feathers were arranged and pruned in perfect symmetry, while his suit had not a single wrinkle on it, nor a blemish on its rubies.

"Oh, I can assure you, they are alive," said the Baron, stepping over the corpse and walking towards them. "Most of them, anyway. Fluttershy was far too meek and Rarity's magic was functionally worthless. I killed them both without mercy. Spike, on the other hand, is merely out cold. Telekinetic nerve blockage. I must remember to take him with me. Anyone who evaded capture for twenty years must be very clever."

Dash's mouth was agape. He had killed Fluttershy? One of her oldest friends from flight camp? Not to mention Rarity? What about her other friends? What had he done to them?

"You…you absolute…" she began, before the target of her sentence interrupted her.

"Absolute what? Bastard? Of course I am. If I showed things like compassion and mercy, I would be well on my way to be as meek and _pathetic_ as Fluttershy, who, obviously, is dead now. People like her finish dead last in life. But the other three…oh, yes, they were far more useful to me. Twilight's magical ability was astonishing. Applejack was outstandingly tough." He cringed for a moment. "Pinkie Pie, though, was a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, her energy was utterly boundless, and she could practically bend reality to her whim. On the other hand, she was very annoying, especially with her habit of bursting into song periodically." He walked closer to them, over Spikes unconscious body. "So I surgically removed her vocal cords without anaesthetic. Then the _real_ fun began."

Dash lurched over, just about ready to vomit (I am aware that horses do not have a gag reflex. Bear with me here). Simon and Lewis were literally shaking with fear, while Jack and Adam held their ground, completely unwavering.

"Yes, you see, before I killed the two previous rulers of this land, I had invested quite the pretty penny in a program I personally called SPARTANS, standing for Steam Powered Assault Realized Through Augmentation of New Systems. Luckily for me, it worked perfectly. Everything went perfectly; not a single hitch in the entire procedure."

"What are you talking about?" Lewis said, stepping forward. He tried to sound intimidating, but he failed miserably. "You're just saying nonsense! Use real words!"

Schadenfreude frowned. "Basically, I turned them into what I suppose you idiotic failures would call 'steampunk cyborgs'. Come on out, ladies!"

This was the symbol for his unwilling soldiers to step out of the nearby shadows. True to his word, they were Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, but only in the loosest sense. They had been turned into horrifying amalgamations of flesh and metal; brass pipes, gears, pistons, and all sorts of other Victorian-era technology ran through their entire person, inside and out. They had retained almost none of their distinguishing features; although their hair remained, Pinkie's had been cut down and flattened so that it didn't serve as a distraction, and their tails had been surgically cut off. Further than that, a small iron plate covered their cutie marks, Applejack lacked her cowboy hat, and almost none of their fur was visible beneath the chaotic mass of tubes and metal. Over each of their right eyes was a surgically implanted viewing scope, apparently for the purposes of analyzing enemies and objects, not unlike the Terminator or the Borg.

"Oh man…" This sight was easily enough to finally push Rainbow over the edge. She ducked behind a nearby dead shrub, and relived her last few meals in reverse.

"That's utterly disgusting." The Baron said, sneering. "I replaced their stomachs with steam boilers for a reason, you know, as I shall do to you, along with Simon and Lewis."

The two aforementioned fellows merely stared, too scared to even follow Dash's example.

"And what about us two?" Adam said, gesturing to himself and Jack.

"You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, so I'll have to kill you. But I'll make this interesting. I will force you all to fight my creations in teams. In fact, I knew the teams I wanted quite some time ago; I've put a lot of thought into it. Off you are, then!"

"Wait!" Adam shouted, but it was too late. The group of five was whisked away to several extremely different locations, along with the diabolical machine-ponies that the Baron had created and selected just for them…

()()()

Yeah, I'm not going to pull any punches with this one, as you can see. Next chapter: the battle of the first group! Until then, AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	4. The First Battle

Impossibilities

Chapter 4

The First Battle

()()()

Before this chapter begins, I should probably say that each of these battles are not occurring simultaneously, but separately. The Baron would, after all, want to view the downfall of his greatest enemies in a coherent manner. I'm sure that you would, too. So, keep that in mind as you read these next few chapters. Until then, onto the action!

()()()

The first group we will focus on is one made up of Lewis and Adam, both of whom are very familiar with Minecraft. Thus, it should come as zero surprise that the area they were teleported to was a blocky, randomly generated world. Right now, they were standing high atop a natural dirt archway. Far below them was a desert, and next to it was, strangely, frozen tundra.

"Is…is this Minecraft?" Lewis asked, looking around at the beautiful, yet impossible landscape.

"I'm not sure what else it could be!" Adam replied, coming out from behind a small tree he was punching at. He was, oddly, not dressed like he was back in Equestria, but as Luigi, from Super Mario Brothers. That wasn't all, though; his arms and legs were rectangular, as was his body, and his head was a cube. Lewis realized he must have been the same, and looked down, revealing that he was wearing his William Riker outfit, complete with beard.

Within a few seconds, the section of tree Adam was attacking broke apart, allowing him to collect a single wood block, enough to make a crafting table.

"So…we can do, like, Minecraft stuff? Crafting, and all that?"

"Yep!" Adam set down his table, and started collecting more wood. "Want a sword? I might be able to summon a few diamonds, or at the least, some iron."

"Uh…sure. But where's the one we're facing off against?"

"I don't know, but we may as well arm ourselves! Hold on." Adam began waving his arms around, and in a few moments, he had several diamond crystals available for him to craft with. "Oh, I did get diamonds!"

"How did you do that?"

Adam shrugged. "Magic." He began working on a sword, and very quickly, both he and Lewis were armed.

"Wait, shouldn't we have armor?" Lewis asked, waving his sword around.

"I don't know. Maybe." Adam started looking around, before he found a very interesting structure below them.

"Lewis, what's that down there?" Lewis quickly walked to Adam, and looked down. What he saw was surprising: a perfectly symmetrical pyramid made of obsidian, about five blocks high. On one side, three blocks up, was a single piece of red wool.

"What's that doing there? Obsidian's really hard to get." Adam jumped down onto a lower block, and began making his way down to the mysterious structure, leaving Lewis atop the arch.

"What is it?" Lewis asked, trying to look down towards him.

"It's… a pyramid made out of obsidian. I can't see any way in!"

But it turned out, there was a way in, not one that he could see. It was hidden quite far away, and led directly into the pyramid. Currently hiding inside it was none other than a blocky and robotic Twilight Sparkle, arming a devastating trap. Allow me to explain how it works.

In Minecraft, there is a special sort of rock called redstone that can carry an electric current, and do all sorts of neat things as a result, including very complex logic gate systems. The trap here worked by having a power source, a redstone torch, on the block that was almost assuredly getting destroyed: the piece of red wool, as obsidian takes forever to destroy. This would, in turn, deactivate a running current that led to an inverter segment (if the power source turns off, it turns on, and vice versa), which was connected to a huge amount of TNT contained within the arch, which was only a façade.

"I'll just destroy this wool block and try to get in!"

As Adam said that, Twilight immediately ran into an underground blast shelter made out of obsidian, which explosions could not destroy.

Adam began hitting at the block, and when it broke apart, he realized he made a horrid mistake looking at the wiring within the pyramid.

"Lewis!" He shouted in terror. "Run away! It's a trap! The arch is fake!"

"Shit! Uh…" Lewis tried looking around, but found no quick way down.

"Damn it." Adam closed his eyes, and prepared to do something he always did have some difficulty with.

"MULTI-TELEPORT!" In an instant, he moved up to Lewis and grabbed him, and in another instant, they were teleported far away from the deadly explosive trap. Adam was just in time, too; just as he teleported away, the arch and ground below was completely annihilated by the equivalent of 100 pounds of TNT. When Twilight got out of her bunker, the arch and part of the surroundings had been completely decimated, and all that remained was a smoking crater.

However, she could instantly tell something was missing; more specifically, the widespread remains of Lewis and Adam. But that didn't matter. It was all according to plan, after all. This was only meant as a distraction. She still knew _exactly_ where they had gone, and immediately ran towards a special "surprise" she had planned for them.

()()()

As I said before, Adam had always had some difficulty with multi-teleports. In particular, he hadn't figured out how to adjust his height from the second teleport onwards. So, when he found himself and Lewis hundreds of feet above an ocean, they were obviously not pleased, even less when they began falling towards the water at astonishing speeds.

Although Lewis was screaming his head off like a madman, Adam was a lot calmer.

"Don't worry, Lewis!" Adam shouted, trying to get his voice over his colleague's psychotic screaming, and the sound of air rushing past them. "Water will break our…" he didn't finish his sentence, since they hit the water which, somehow, did not immediately break them into pieces as if it was a slab of concrete, but saved their lives.

Outstandingly shocked, Lewis instinctively swam upwards, sputtering when his head popped up. Adam was doing a leisurely backstroke.

"How am I alive? I was going at least thirty kilometers an hour!"

"It's Minecraft, remember? Falling into water negates fall damage."

Lewis merely stared as Adam began to swim toward the shore.

"Come on, Lewis, don't just float there."

Having no other option, Lewis began swimming after him, worried what would happen next.

()()()

A bit later, Adam had successfully constructed a small shack, and gotten some more weapons. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

"So," Lewis asked, trying to craft some armor, "What do you suppose she'll do next?"

"She might think we're dead." Adam was crafting another diamond sword; Lewis had lost his in the teleport.

"But didn't the Baron want me alive?"

Adam looked up. "Hey, you're right. Uh, would you mind getting me some more wood real quick?"

"Sure thing, friend."

Lewis opened the door and walked outside, but was immediately met with a volley of flaming arrows.

"Shit!" Lewis immediately ran back inside, got away from the door, and cowered in a corner.

"We're under attack!" Adam said. "I'll put a stop to this!"

He pulled out a sword, but it wasn't the diamond one he just crafted; it appeared like a normal sword, but rather than wood or stone or iron, it was some black object; perhaps obsidian, although that could not be made into anything.

"What the hell is that?"

"This is my blade. The Time Gods gave it to me once they invited me to join the Protectors when I defeated Bowser and saved time!"

As Adam walked out, Lewis mumbled to himself how Adam was completely insane, either from that little story he just told, or the fact that he just ran out into a rain of flaming arrows.

"Oh, damn it." Ducking under the unending volley, he looked where the arrows were coming from. He wasn't particularly surprised; it was a large ship, capable of very fast movement, which was very difficult to do in Minecraftia. Its main armament was a series of arrow dispensers on its front, arranged in a checker pattern, with a permanent fire going on below all of them. A complex redstone circuit behind all of them meant that they constantly fired in a precise rhythm. Standing atop it in some sort of glass dome was none other than Twilight, in a blocky form exactly like the two heroes trying to stop her. She looked much more human, ignoring the horrifying metallic implants, though a bit of a purple shirt peeked out from under them.

"Come on, then, Twilight!" Adam knew it may be dangerous to teleport, but he didn't see any other way up.

"TELEPORT!"

In a nanosecond, he was standing right next to Twilight, in the dome, now obviously revealed as a console of some sort. He attempted to slash at her with his blade, but she expertly dodged it, doing a backflip onto a control panel.

"Not bad!" Adam ran at her, jumped in the air, and began spinning around rapidly, trying to distract her and get a chance to attack. He didn't get that chance, as Twilight merely leapt to the side and let Adam's blade get caught in the panel.

"Damn it!" He began trying to wrench out his blade, but that didn't last long, as Twilight began throwing fireballs at him. Adam ducked under them, still trying to remove his sword.

"What are you doing? You'll burn down the whole place!"

She didn't listen, and threw several more. Adam gave up on his weapon, and tried to run away, pushing buttons and switching levers in hope that it would accomplish something. All he managed to do was make the firing patterns of the arrow dispensers completely erratic and random.

"Maybe this one? Or this one here? Ah, none of these are working!"

Twilight was preparing a truly massive ball of fire now, hot enough to melt steel, and Adam knew that if he didn't do something, he would be doomed. Then, he saw it: the clearly labeled switch stating that it would deactivate all mechanisms in the ship.

"Rookie mistake!" Adam said, pulling the lever down with all his strength. The ship began falling to the ground at once, and an alarm was telling all personnel (in this case, one person) to evacuate. This distraction was enough to get Twilight to blast the fireball downward, burning through the floor and all of the redstone circuitry.

She looked down, and realized what a travesty this was. For one, all of the redstone had been deactivated, and the ship was slowly falling to earth as the main engines died. For two, the fireball had sparked a massive conflagration on the ground below, burning through the entire forest as if it was nothing.

"Heh, heh, I've defeated you!" He tried to run over to his sword, but one of the panels exploded, blocking his path. "Oh, forget it. Multi-teleport!" He was put next to his sword in a nanosecond, which he wasted no time in grabbing, and in almost the same amount of time he was a few feet above the house he had built. He fell to it with no problem, and then jumped inside.

"Lewis! I got it! It's safe to come out!"

"What?" Lewis carefully walked outside, followed by Adam.

"You call that safe?" Lewis asked, gesturing to the burning wreckage of the ship, which had since fallen to the ground. The surrounding trees were rapidly burning away, but the forest was pretty small, and nothing much else would be destroyed.

"Yep." Adam walked over to the ship, and looked at it for a few seconds. "I guess we won then, right?"

But they hadn't won yet. Twilight was still alive, and had a few more tricks up her sleeve; in particular, the eject button that would send her out and blow up the rest of the ship.

"Now all I have to do is figure out a way to get back to Equestria!" Adam turned to go back inside his house, but as he did, the ship exploded behind him, knocking him out instantaneously. A few seconds later, Twilight landed on the ground next to him, and picked up his sword.

"Oh, come on!" Lewis pulled out his diamond sword, and prepared for the worst.

Twilight began running at him with the sword over her head, and Lewis closed his eyes and put his sword in front of himself, expecting a mighty blow. But it never came.

"What?" He opened his eyes, and saw Twilight lying on the ground, unmoving. Adam was standing over her, holding his sword.

"I was expecting the ship to explode, so I tricked her by pretending I was asleep. She wasn't expecting my electrical powers to overload her circuitry! Nice sword, eh?"

"Uh…yeah, it is. Thanks for that."

None of them really knew what to say after that, so they simply went back inside to start working on the way back to Equestria…

()()()

"Impossible!" Cried the Baron, watching the battle on a television screen like the one in his original base. "Twilight has been defeated?" In his anger, he pushed over a nearby table, shattering the vase and teacup on top of it. "Curse them! I can only hope that Pinkie will fare better against Jack and Simon…oh, what am I saying? Of course she'll do better, with those machine guns in her arms! Nobody can outsmart a bullet, after all!" He began laughing, and tuned into the next battle

()()()

Next time: Jack and Simon versus Pinkie Pie! Will the two heroes emerge victorious? Or will they meet the Baron's wishes and fail? Find out next time! Until then, this is AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	5. The Next Battle

Impossibilities

Chapter Five

The Next Battle

()()()

"Nobody can outsmart a bullet, after all!" He began laughing, and tuned into the next battle. It was occurring within a large skyscraper he had personally built in the middle of a desert in another universe. The entire complex was full of cameras, so he wouldn't miss a single moment of the action.

()()()

Simon and Jack found themselves in a dank basement, with utterly horrendous lighting. Jack's form had changed; he was now a tall human clearly fit in an athletic manner. He retained his beard, but was shaved bald. He was wearing a white jacket, with a gold inlay fleur-de-lis on the back. His pants were simple, functional jeans, and his shoes were similar to the Baron's; leather oxfords. On his right hip was a holster, which probably had a gun in it. However, Simon couldn't see it. Speaking of Simon, his current form was quite similar to his human form, but he was wearing dwarven gear much like his pony attire; strange, since he was about the same height as Jack.

"Jack, is that you?" He asked, looking at his own hands.

"Yeah, it's me. At least the Baron had the common courtesy to give me my gun."

Jack opened the holster, and pulled out a beautiful weapon. It was a handgun, about the same size as the ever-popular Desert Eagle; however, the handle was a bit wider. But that wasn't what made the gun beautiful. What made it beautiful was its materials; the handle was mahogany, with complex ivory inlay. The main body of the gun was simple carbon fiber, but complex gold filigree ran from the barrel to the front of the slide. The slide itself was ebony, and had a solid gold fleur-de-lis, exactly like the one on his jacket. Beneath the fleur-de-lis, in golden lettering, was the name "Alejandro".

"Whoa." Was all that Simon could think of saying.

"Yeah, it's a nice gun." He looked at it for a few moments. "No ammo. Son of a bitch."

Simon patted himself down to see if he was armed, and found something interesting: a small axe, put inside a custom holster attached to his belt.

"Is this it?" He asked, pulling it out.

"Hey, at least you can use that for its intended purpose! The only thing I can do with this is hit somebody with it."

"Well, that's still kind of…"

"Shh!" Jack demanded, looking towards a nearby stairwell. "You hear that?"

Simon could hear it; footsteps, coming down towards them. A strange whirring noise and a metallic clang highlighted each one.

"What the hell is that?" Simon asked, pulling out his axe in preparation.

Just as soon as he asked that, the noise stopped.

"Wait for it…" Jack said, stepping towards a nondescript wooden crate.

Suddenly, an unknown assailant began firing multiple high-caliber bullets into the room. Jack, wasting no time at all, pulled Simon behind the crate, and started thinking of a plan.

"Fuck, we're getting shot at!" Simon shouted, putting his head all the way down to the floor.

"Nice analysis, Einstein! You want to help?"

"Uh, no! I'm going to get shot!"

"I'll distract her, you throw your axe!"

Before Simon could object, Jack ran out into the oncoming fire, ducking below the incredibly fast-moving lead to protect himself. He jumped behind a boiler, which forced their assailant to come out of the shadows, so she could get a better shot at them. Simon peeked up from his crate, and ducked down almost immediately, once he saw who, or rather, what it was.

Her form was human, although only barely; she was almost entirely metal, brass and iron especially. The Baron had only left a little bit of skin revealed, on the right side of her face. The left side was taken up by the strange viewing scope that had actually changed its design to fit this new body structure. She clearly had no major organs, or even her circulatory and muscular systems; steam boilers and impossibly complex gear systems had replaced it all. Of course, the fact that she could move around and actually think about the situation implied that she still had a nervous system, or at the least a brain. A small bit of pink hair peeking out from under the metal on her scalp confirmed who she was: Pinkie Pie.

"Here goes nothing!" Simon shouted, standing up and pulling out his axe. "YOU HAVE MY AXE!"

He threw the weapon at her, which just barely nicked a brass pipe leading down her forearm. This was just enough to break it open, and it began blowing out vital steam. She desperately began covering it with her other hand, but she was still losing her source of power quite rapidly. She realized that steam is a really crap source of power compared to other methods the Baron most definitely had available to him, and she ran off to find something that would help her.

"Ha! She retreated." Simon climbed out and smiled arrogantly. "Come back here, you wimp!"

"Don't mock her, you idiot! She's armed!"

Jack walked over to the stairwell, and ducked to the left of it, placing his gun at his side as if it was loaded.

"I'll go on ahead. When I give the signal, come up."

Jack began running up the stairs, leaving Simon very confused.

"What's the signal?" He asked, scratching his head in utter confusion.

"You'll know it when you see it!"

Jack ran to the left, into a hallway that was much better lit than the basement. It had very few furnishings; two obviously fake plants were at the end of it, leading into a very generic lobby, and nothing much else. The lobby was quite simple; in the middle of it was a glass coffee table, upon which sat several year-old magazines that nobody read. A closer inspection would have revealed them to be just the covers glued to a painted bit of wood. A few chairs were set up in a circle around it.

"I know you're in here somewhere!" Jack began walking to the lobby, keeping a low profile in case he was ambushed. Ducking behind one of the fake plants, he looked into the lobby, analyzing the surroundings to see any possible hiding places or cover from gunfire. He saw that there were only two viable ways out: the only working elevator, and the front door. All the windows had been boarded shut. He also saw that several leaves on the fake plant appeared to have been ripped off.

"Why would she have…"

A gunshot cut his question short, almost shaving off part of his beard.

"Oh, nice try!" Jack yelled, looking through the plant. Pinkie, suddenly on top of the glass table, appeared to be reloading her weapons, placing magazines in a slot beneath her rifles.

"Should have conserved your ammo, Newton." Jack mumbled, readying his gun.

He grimaced, and closed his eyes, knowing that what he was about to do was incredibly stupid.

"BUT I DON'T NEED ANY TO TAKE YOU DOWN!"

This extremely loud boast was enough to provide Pinkie with a momentary distraction. He jumped across the hallway, and actually threw his gun at her, doing an unnecessary combat roll behind the other fake plant. The movement of the gun wasn't exactly a beautiful, elegant display, though; the trajectory was quite strange, and it didn't move around quite like a boomerang, but it did what it was meant to do. When it made contact of the only remaining flesh she had, it damn well _made contact_. The force of the throw, combined with the sheer weight of the gun, was enough to knock her off the table, and the magazines out of their slots.

"Bulls-eye!" Jack yelled, pointlessly kicking the plant away and running towards her.

As Pinkie got up, desperately trying to replace her ammunition, Jack leaped into the air, did a needless frontflip, and kicked her right on the back of the head. This did little but annoy her, though, since the metal plating there was so thick that even a bullet would have difficulty getting past it. He took note that she appeared to have braided the fake leaves together for a makeshift bandage, to cover up her "wound".

She finally stood up, ignoring the ammunition lying on the floor and stared at Jack for a few moments, before charging at him like an enraged bronco.

"Moron." Jack deftly jumped in the air and, using her moving body as a springboard, jumped over the table. By the time Pinkie turned around, Jack had his weapon and was making very good progress down the hall. She grimaced, and gave chase, eager to fulfill the mission, preferably in the most painful manner possible.

()()()

Simon, not having anything to do, decided to look at his axe a bit closer. He didn't see anything particularly notable; it was just a simple iron axe. A wooden handle, two blades, nothing more. He supposed it was enough, though; fancy runes and golden inlay wouldn't make it any faster or sharper. It was exactly what it was supposed to be.

But something interrupted his study; Jack running back into the basement.

"Jack, where've you been? What about the signal?"

"Don't ask, there's been a change of plans. Follow me into the service elevator!"

Simon holstered his axe, and ran with Jack into the elevator next to the staircase.

"Well, now what?" Simon demanded, not seeing the point.

"There. He marked the floor he wants us to go to." Jack pointed at the floor buttons, one of which was highlighted with red: 66, the top floor.

"That's a trap, Jack!"

"Duh." Jack pressed the button to floor 65 instead, and the doors began to close, just as Pinkie was walking back down into the basement. She wasn't about to let them get away that easy, though, and jumped off the stairwell.

"Damn it, she's here!" Simon shouted, ducking into the corner like a pathetic wimp.

Thinking quickly, she grabbed the sides of the doors, and began pushing them open so hard that the mechanism for them actually broke, leaving them open.

"Not today!" Jack kicked her in the face before she could get in, and she fell to the floor immediately. As she got up, she was treated to the unique sight of her prey escaping. Enraged, she took immediate action, jumping into the shaft and climbing upwards.

()()()

The elevator ride took some time, and allowed Simon to comprehend what just happened.

"Wait, is that it?" Simon asked, on the 55th "Did we win?"

"No, she'll be back."

And just like that, something began pounding on the floor, sending a very odd banging sound through the whole shaft.

"See? Right there." Jack was utterly nonchalant about it, considering that a murderous steampunk Terminator rip-off was about to enter the elevator car.

"What the hell is she doing?" Simon asked, his voice shaking with fear. The floor was actually starting to bend upwards from the sheer force, but it finally gave way, revealing a terrible metallic hand. Pinkie began using her other hand to push the hole even wider, and started climbing inside.

"Jesus!" Frightened out of his wits, Simon pulled out his axe and started swinging it around wildly, not even trying to aim for Pinkie at all. It was by sheer luck that he managed to nick another pipe; in fact, it was a similar pipe on her other arm. It was enough to get her out of the elevator, although she was able to grab onto the bottom again.

"Stop flinging that around, you idiot!" Jack yelled, grabbing Simon's arm. "You'll get me killed!"

As Simon tried to calm down, they arrived on the 65th floor, and both of them ran out, desperate to get away from the psychotic robot trying to kill them. She certainly seemed to be taking her time; a second injury hardly improved her situation. When she finally climbed back up, the elevator began to automatically descend, meaning that she would have to climb through the roof and all the way back up to the right floor.

"I say we go and look at what was so interesting that the Baron wanted us to see it." Jack bit his lip and ran up the nearby stairs, Simon following right behind.

When they looked at the explosives piled up in front of the elevator, it didn't take a lot of thought to figure out what the Baron wanted to do.

"Huh. Normally, he wouldn't do something like that." Jack noted. The Baron considered such methods as these to be rather crude and ineffective.

"Well, it didn't work."

Jack rolled his eyes at this painfully obvious statement, before noticing something on the ground: a rectangular metal object, which he recognized immediately.

"Huh. He was courteous enough to give me some ammunition. How lovely."

Jack bent over to pick it up, and saw he only had one bullet; it wasn't even hollow-point like usual.

"Only one?" Simon asked.

"That's all I need. You go ahead with your axe and lead her back up here when she comes out. I've got a plan."

"What? I'm not going down there first!"

"Simon…"

"Oh, fine."

Simon reluctantly crept down the stairs, his weapon at the ready.

"Prepare to die, robotic scum!" Simon yelled, raising his axe above his head. But he didn't have to, as Pinkie was not yet up there.

"Um, Jack, I think she's missing!"

"Just wait a second by the elevator!"

Simon did so, preparing to strike at anything that came out. Suddenly, the doors began to open, seemingly of their own accord; Simon couldn't tell if Pinkie was opening them herself, or forced the mechanism. Soon, the doors opened, and Simon peeked inside. He saw nothing, so he didn't feel he needed anything to worry about.

"I think she fell down the shaft, Jack!"

But she hadn't; she had cleverly held on just above the door, for a sneak attack.

"I guess we showed OOF!"

Pinkie had jumped into the hall and kicked him in the gut, forcing him to drop his weapon and collapse to the ground in a miserable heap. Pinkie grabbed his weapon and threw it down the elevator shaft, mostly out of spite, but also so he wouldn't be able to do anything. The axe struck the cord holding the elevator up; although it didn't destroy it, the slightest jolt would finish the job.

"Jack!" He shouted, trying to crawl away, "I need backup!"

Pinkie kicked him in the back of the neck, shutting him up quickly.

()()()

"Of course he needs backup," Jack groaned, putting the clip into his gun and pulling back the slide. "Genius."

He didn't hesitate at all to jump down the stairs and point his gun at Pinkie.

"I only need one bullet, Pinkie. You can just give up right now, and I won't shoot you."

She got into a fighting stance, which was just enough for Jack.

"I hate to do this to you, but…"

Jack raised his gun, and fired a single shot, which went right through Pinkie's viewing scope and into her head. At first, she didn't know what had happened. She stumbled back towards the shaft, before she succumbed to the wound and fell into it, hurtling towards the elevator below. It took her a few seconds to hit the elevator itself, which had stopped in its tracks due to the door having been forced open, and it was enough to complete the damage to the cord. It only took a few seconds for the elevator to hit the bottom, completely obliterating it.

"What happened?" Simon asked, getting up and rubbing his neck. "Did we win?"

"I think we have." Jack said, looking down the shaft. But he noticed something strange: a red light, flashing on and off. It turned out the Baron had hidden a nasty surprise inside of Pinkie's various mechanisms: a high-powered explosive. From where she was, the blast was essentially harmless; it wasn't large enough to reach up the entire building, and it wasn't powerful enough to destroy the foundation.

"What the hell is that?" He stepped away from the door, and as he did, the entire building shook, but it didn't last long, and it became obvious that everything was over.

"Holy shit, that almost killed us!." Simon shouted, jumping back in fear.

"But it didn't

"Let me think, let me think, let me think…"

"We don't have time to think!"

()()()

"Damn it all!" The Baron shouted. "They've made my explosives worthless! It took me months to figure out how to put that bomb in her without affecting the mechanisms, and they negated it! I will never use explosive devices again; I _knew_ they were crude and ineffective!"

It took him some time to get over his anger, and he decided that one example of explosives not working wasn't enough to base his entire strategy on. After all, wantonly destroying things was very fun, and he had funded all of those different types of missiles. He was particularly fond of the incendiary and neurotoxin ones, so he came to a new decision.

"It is no matter. I suppose blowing things up has a time and a place. Enough of that, though! It comes time for the next battle." He smiled horribly, and turned to the final screen. "If Rainbow Dash falls to Applejack, I will most certainly have enough raw power to defeat the rest."

()()()

Next time: The last battle! Will Rainbow Dash end up losing to one of her closest friends? Will the Baron emerge victorious? Find out next time, on Impossibilities! This has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	6. Old Friends

Impossibilities

Chapter 6

Old Friends

The time had come for the last battle. The Baron knew this would be the best of all; for one, Rainbow Dash would be utterly unwilling to harm her best friend. For two…well, that was it, really. But it was enough for the Baron to see Dash get annihilated without putting up any sort of fight. He even had his favorite tea at his side, and a bowl of various small confections next to him.

But enough about the Baron's guess as to the outcome of the battle; let's _see_ what the outcome is for ourselves.

()()()

Out of all of them, Rainbow Dash was teleported the least distance. It wasn't saying a whole lot, though; she was still _in_ Equestria, certainly, but several miles away from her initial location; a large apple farm called Sweet Apple Acres. You wouldn't be able to tell this at first, though; the majority of the trees were gone, and those that remained were completely dead and blackened from the horrendously polluted atmosphere. All the buildings had fallen apart, and not one living thing remained in it. The imposing factor, plus the "Applejack used to live here" factor, was exactly why the Baron chose this place for the final battle.

"Whoa…" Dash slowly began to look around, observing everything that had changed. "What happened here?"

No one else was around, so she started walking through the remains of the farm.

"Is…is this all that's left?"

She sat down, trying to take in everything that was going on. Equestria had been utterly ruined; nothing about it even vaguely resembled the peaceful land it once was. From what she could tell through the horrendous smog, Canterlot had been completely razed and replaced with a huge factory that produced the vast majority of pollution. She didn't know what was made there, and didn't really care to find out. But a metallic clang behind her and the sound of ground being crushed beneath a hoof interrupted her thoughts.

She wheeled around, and saw Applejack standing there, exactly as she had been back in Ponyville.

"A-applejack?" She asked, taking a step backwards. "I-it's me, Rainbow Dash. Remember me? Your best friend?"

Applejack merely stood there, doing nothing.

"Can you hear me?"

Dash took a step forward; a foolish mistake, since Applejack took this to be the first move, and responded as only she could: charging straight forward, taking advantage of the pneumatic pistons in her legs.

"Whoa!" Dash narrowly avoided the attack, but fell to the ground due to the surprise.

"Applejack, come on, it's me!"

Dash clambered to her hooves, and turned back to look at Applejack, who had now stopped, and was waiting for Dash's move.

"You don't have to do this! I'm your friend!"

But Applejack was having none of this. She charged again, steam coursing through her body like the blood that was once there. This time, Dash simply flew over her, having some actual reaction time, since she wasn't caught by surprise. Applejack ran off into the distance, not expecting that, and rammed into a tree, destroying it and providing a momentary distraction.

"Oh man, Applejack…Sorry!"

She allowed herself to fall to the ground, and began running towards the old, dilapidated barn, remembering something they had done a while ago.

As Dash got inside, Applejack got back up, and immediately ran towards the barn, it being the only vague cover that one could think of. In a few seconds, she was inside, and saw that Dash was standing next to two overturned barrels full of rotten apples.

"Applejack?" She asked, losing hope that any of this would work. "Do you remember these? The time we had that bet?"

Applejack looked at her for a moment, before recalling a vague memory…

()()()

"You ready, Dash?" Applejack asked, standing in the barn, in front of a barrel filled with apples. Dash was next to her, with her own barrel filled with the same number of apples. They were having another one of their silly little contests; this time, to see whom could eat the most apples in an hour.

"That depends," she responded, sounding as confident as ever, "Are you?"

"Oh, I'm rarin' to go!" Applejack yelled back. "Let's start this up!"

They began eating, and as they did, the memory started to fade away…

()()()

At that moment, Applejack snapped back to the present, her programming stopping her from having any good memories for too long, but still enough for her to hesitate hurting her friend. But that wasn't enough for the Baron, still paying close attention.

"What? Impossible!" The Baron yelled. "I suppressed those memories! I crushed their spirits and broke their minds! I convinced them their closest friends had completely abandoned them! How could she possibly remember any of this!"

He swatted away his cup of tea in rage, and cursed Applejack under his breath. She was a strong one, and he clearly didn't break her enough. He took a few deep breaths, and sat back down, hoping that the fight would soon get back on track…

()()()

In fact, by the time the Baron started watching again after this bout of anger, the fight had recommenced. Dash took advantage of the distraction provided by the memory, and flew away, out of the farm entirely and back to Ponyville. However, this wasn't nearly enough to stop her foe, who was in hot pursuit towards the town.

There must be something in town she remembers…that's still here," she thought, touching down in the former marketplace, which now seemed to be a sort of refugee camp. A few slipshod tents were scattered about, as were several cardboard boxes. A small group of ponies, none of which Dash recognized, were scattered around a flaming barrel; four fillies and a colt. Each of them was covered with partially stitched rags, and were completely hidden to any observers; the ugly brown rags blended in perfectly with the horrendously ugly brown surroundings.

"Uh, hello?" She asked them.

The all looked up as one, and gasped in horror.

"She's clean, and looks healthy," the colt said, standing up. Surprisingly, his voice was perfectly fine, as opposed to the gritty nicotine-bathed voice most people would have expected. Dash guessed he was the leader of the group, not that it was a great accomplishment in this place. "She must be one of the traitors! GET HER!"

"Wait, what? I'm not a traitor! I'm trying to help!"

This statement was hardly a convincing one, and two of the fillies tried attacking her, and by that I mean just running at her like idiots. She easily dodged, and the two fillies prepared for another attack before the leader came to a realization.

"Wait! Stop! Do not harm her! She is the one that went missing! She is no traitor!"

"Uh, yeah, I already said that I'm not!"

"We must apologize for that…" he looked away from her, and bowed his head, "We can't afford to take any chances. I am named Karek. You must be…Rainbow Dash, correct?"

"Yeah, that's me, the one and only! Fastest pony in Equestria!" she beamed.

Karek only stared at her, not particularly caring about her supposed credentials. "Anyway, we've been searching for you and your friends a very long time. I did not think today would be the day."

"Wait, you've been looking for us? We were just outside the library a few minutes ago."

"Damn. Where are they now?"

"I…don't really know, actually. I hope they won…"

"Won against who?" Karek was interested now; if they had managed to fight one of the Baron's minions, and actually _win_, they could gain one of the biggest advantages in history.

"Uh…he called them the Spartans or something. I forgot exactly what he s…"

"Wait!" Karek interrupted. "The Spartans? They exist?"

"Yeah, and I'm kind of in the middle of fighting one!"

Karek raised his eyebrow. "For how long?"

"Uh…ten minutes, maybe? I'm not sure…"

"You faced a Spartan for ten minutes and you are still alive? How can this be possible?"

"Well, I used to know her…"

He looked at Dash solemnly, and shook his head. "If you had mercy, you would allow her to die."

Dash was only able to gape at this suggestion. "You want me to KILL her? I can't do that? She's…she's my friend!"

"She is not your friend anymore; her mind has been destroyed, her spirit crushed. She only knows that you are the enemy, and that you must die."

"No…I can't…"

She heard a metallic clank, and knew who was standing right behind her.

"Applejack…please…it's me, Rainbow Dash…don't you remember?"

"No!" Karek shouted. "She remembers nothing!"

But Applejack was still hesitant, and Rainbow Dash realized something: she had remembered something, even if it wasn't much.

"You're lying." Dash turned to face the colt. "She _did_ remember something. She's still in there, somewhere."

"Oh, forget this." Karek used his magic to pull of the cloak, revealing that he was actually the Baron in a clever disguise. He didn't have his monocle or bowler hat, but it was still very clearly him.

"You!" Dash shouted, her anger boiling up within.

"Yes, yes, it's me. Any groups of 'freedom fighters' would be doing unpaid slave labor in the factory by now. I'm not an idiot, you know. Anyway, as for why I'm here, I thought that I would give Applejack a hand in your demise, but for some reason, she refuses to kill you now. Come on, Applejack, just do her in already!"

"No!" Dash was getting desperate, and her voice had begun to crack. "Applejack, you have to listen to me! This is the guy that did all of this! He's made Equestria into a wasteland! He killed Rarity and Fluttershy!"

That was enough to send Applejack back into reality, and see what had happened. She was barely capable of speech, but still tried to push something out.

"You…you did this…to me…to us…to Equestria." Her voice was cold and robotic, but still had that southern drawl to it.

"Yes, I did do this." The Baron smiled, seemingly pleased with his work; then he went deathly serious again. "But I am your master, and I command you to kill Rainbow Dash at once!"

Applejack looked down at herself, at her metallic legs, with their steam pipes and pistons. He claimed that Dash had abandoned her, but that wasn't true; she was trying to help her, trying to make her remember who she really was. And then, she came to the most important decision of all.

"No."

The Baron was enraged at this example of insubordination. "That wasn't a request, Applejack!" He shouted in raw fury, "That was an order! Kill her right now or I'll torture both of you to death in the most horrifically painful ways imaginable! Actually, no, I _will_ ensure that your pain is so great that it cannot even be _comprehended_ by a mortal being! KILL HER NOW!"

"Oh, shut up." Dash said, kicking up with her hind legs, attempting to strike the Baron's face. This rather weak attack was not nearly enough to stop the Baron, who easily dodged it.

"You'll have to do vastly better than that!" He taunted. This was a prompt for Applejack to attack him, doing something much more complex. She leaped into the air, almost twenty feet straight up, and spread out her limbs, to maximize her impact area. As she fell to the earth, the Baron remembered something; not to move out of the way, but where she learned this.

"Damn! I taught her how to do that!"

With only a second to spare, the Baron flew up, but the sheer force of Applejack hitting the ground was enough to blow him towards the "refugees", which were nothing more than specters. He quickly righted himself, and was getting very impatient.

"Enough of this!" He began charging a devastating attack, and aimed at Rainbow Dash. "Good day, madam!"

A neon red beam of raw destructive energy coursed towards her…but it did not hit Dash. At the last possible instant, Applejack had jumped in front of the beam, and absorbed all of its power, though she was still thrown backwards, knocking both her and Dash into the ground. Applejack tried to stand up, but collapsed to the ground, a gaping "wound" in her side. The attack and blown through her outer steel casing and hit her main boiler, which was blowing steam out through the hole in it.

"Oh…what happened?" Dash climbed to her hooves, and saw what had happened to Applejack.

"NO!" she shouted, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "Applejack, please, don't die on me!"

Applejack looked at her friend, and with her last remaining energy, she said, "Don't worry. He lost anyway…"

Her only eye closed, and Dash knew it was too late for her. The Baron began laughing, but Dash soon shut him up.

"You…you BASTARD!" she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You killed her! You turned her into…THIS!"

She yelled out an inarticulate cry, one of pure anguish, before flying at incredible speeds into the polluted atmosphere. She held her breath, to avoid breathing in the toxic air, and kept flying up and up.

"What is she doing now?" The Baron wondered aloud, before receiving his answer. At about a mile and a half up, she had stopped flying upwards, and began going in a streamlined freefall, right towards her enemy. A few powerful flaps of her wings increased her speed massively, forming a cone around her body, and eventually, she did the impossible: she broke the sound barrier, and for the third time in her life, did a Sonic Rainboom. At the point where she hit that speed, a massive "boom" could be heard, and a large, perfectly concentric rainbow expanded outwards, powerful enough to clear away part of the toxic atmosphere.

"What?" The Baron cried. "Impossible!"

He was so shocked, he did not even try to move out of the way, and bore the full force of Rainbow Dash going at mach 1.1. A massive cloud of dust rose up, and many of the surrounding buildings were completely destroyed.

It took some time for the dust to clear, and when it did, the Baron was gone; he had teleported away to his fortress to heal. His injuries were to great, and he recognized that only a fool would stay and fight in his condition.

"Dash?" A voice called out, Adam's voice. "Is that you?"

"No," Jack responded, "It's just _another_ pony that can go at the speed of sound and leave a rainbow-colored trail!"

The others soon found her, panting heavily, and still crying.

"What was that?" Simon asked, completely bewildered.

"A Sonic Rainboom," was all she could manage to choke out, "The Baron's gone."

"I'm sorry about Applejack." Lewis said, trying to show his sympathies.

"Uh, I figured out a spell to go back to the past. We can do it whenever you're ready. "

Dash walked towards them.

"Let's take him down."

One bright flash later, they had gone twenty years in the past, leaving behind a wasteland that only they could repair…

()()()

Yeah, I'm pretty much going to be a _lot_ more serious with this one, as evidenced by the death and tragedy and such. As for the late upload, I started school recently, and am now on a new update schedule: the new chapters now come on Saturdays. Until next week, this has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	7. The Showdown, Part One of Three

Impossibilities

Chapter Seven

The Showdown, Part One of Three

()()()

In an instant, they all found themselves at the same location, twenty years in the past. The sky was clean, the birds were singing, the buildings weren't non-OSHA compliant hazard zones; everything was back to the way it should have been.

"Oh, man, it's good to be back!" Dash said, breathing in the fresh air.

"Don't get too nostalgic, Dash," Jack warned, looking up towards Canterlot. "We still have a job to do."

"Oh, yeah, right."

There was a brief pause, before Dash spoke up again.

"So, now what?"

"We'll need a lot more help this time. Adam, get Twilight and Applejack."

"What about the others?" He asked, prepping a multi-teleport.

"Leave them here, in case Herobrine comes back. Tell them to go to Twilight's place and bring weapons."

"Right. Multi-teleport!"

In about twenty seconds, Adam returned, Twilight and a very confused Applejack at his side.

"How'd he do that?" Applejack was vaguely aware of how magic worked, and she was pretty sure that it was impossible to teleport more than one pony at a time.

"I've always been able to multi-teleport!" Adam said, in his usual eerily cheerful tone.

"I still have no idea how he does that." Twilight was much better versed in magic, so she knew what she was talking about.

Jack sighed. "Enough small talk, we need to get there _now_. This is just a massive waste of time."

"Oh, all right, then. Teleport!"

()()()

"Finally, I'm rid of that fool Jack. Now, on to Celestia and Luna, and my new rule!"

It was just moments after the Baron had sent the group years into the future, and he was gloating to himself about how awesome he was.

"Not so fast, Baron," Jack said, appearing out of thin air behind his foe.

"What?" Schadenfreude wheeled around, and gaped at them. "Impossible? The SPARTANS failed? But…how? And how did you get back?"

"Wait, what are the SPARTANS?" Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't ask, it's not pretty." Jack said.

"Well, Jack, if you're not going to tell her, I shall."

The Baron cleared his throat, and began a short, though more specific speech about his plans.

"Twilight, after I kill Celestia, Luna, and you four idiots," he glared towards Jack, Adam, Simon, and Lewis, making it clear who it was that he despised at that moment, "I'll convert you, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie into horrific steam-powered atrocities that function only to kill. As for Fluttershy and Rarity…well, I wouldn't want to give you _terrible_ nightmares. Let's just say they'll be otherwise…indisposed, or rather, disposed of. Equestria itself will be turned into a hellish wasteland, but I'm sure that Jack told you that already."

"Not if we have anything to say about it!" Applejack insisted, putting her hoof to the floor.

"What?" The Baron asked. "Is that really the best you can come up with? That's honestly pathetic, Jack. I would have expected _some_ explanation on how to do threatening quips."

"There wasn't enough time to waste on that."

"Well, I do have to admit I loathe wasting time. Which, by the way, is exactly what you're trying to do while Adam attempts a sneak attack behind me." He gestured to the back of the group, indicating that Adam had disappeared. "Isn't that right, Adam?"

He turned around, but was surprised to find only the gaping hole he had blasted into the wall.

"What? Where did he…"

"SURPRISE!" Adam yelled, teleporting in at that moment and landing atop the Baron, both of them collapsing into a heap on the floor.

"Get off of me, you idiot!" The Baron used his dark magic to throw him off, and got back up.

"Oh, that was smart, Jack, toying with my expectations. Who came up with that?"

"I did!" Adam said, suddenly standing right next to him. "That was completely my idea!"

"Oh, will you shut up already!" He fired a freezing spell, encasing Adam in a solid block of ice.

"As for you, I have quickly grown tired of this absolute nonsense…and, of course, Rainbow Dash is now missing. Let me guess, she is about to fly in through that gaping hole I blew in the wall, which will catch me off guard, and you'll all start attacking me while I'm off-balance."

He glanced at the destruction he had caused, but noted a distinct lack of blue ponies flying towards him.

"Oh, come on!" The Baron yelled. "Does nobody have an inkling of predictability anymore? Wait…"

He'd heard a strange noise; a loud hum, quickly increasing with pitch. He ducked, and with good timing, too; Rainbow Dash had actually flown _up_ instead of sideways, and just now decided to fly back down, through the wall, and slam right into the Baron, but this plan was negated by her target's skillful dodge. She slammed into the opposite wall, and slumped to the ground, seemingly unconscious.

"Oh, that was just _horrendous_. Honestly, you idiots beat the SPARTANS? How did you ever manage to do that?"

"I might not know what you're talking about," Applejack interjected, "but I know that you're just putting on airs, and that you're gonna lose!"

Using the absolutely perfect strategy of rushing him, she tried to knock out his hooves from beneath, so he would be off balance and be easier to defeat. The flaw in the plan was, however, painfully obvious to anybody that thought about it for more than a few seconds, and the Baron easily moved away and delivered a brutal chop against a certain place on the back of her neck, temporarily paralyzing her. She collapsed instantly, her legs no longer moving, and crumpled

"Hey, what'd you do to me?" She asked, her voice slurring.

"A pressure point. I blocked off a particular group of nerves, the motor control ones located in the spine. It will take about an hour for you to regain complete muscle control."

"That's cheatin'!"

"No, dear Applejack, that is not cheating. That is _winning_. There's a difference."

Jack bit his lip. "Hey, what's that behind you?"

"Oh, dear me. This has gone from being pathetic to being outright _saddening_. What a shame, really. I ought to put you all out of your misery."

He began charging an attack, focusing on the sheer devastating power. Red lines of raw magic energy, twisting into themselves in impossible ways began leading into his horn, and in a few seconds he was ready. Twilight gasped, realizing he was about to unleash the most difficult spell in existence: the Infinite Barrier Wave, which generated so much power that if it was stored, it could replace the sun for many years. Once unleashed, there was no protection against it; it would destroy the target (and everything around the target, including the planet itself) without any possible defense. It only existed in theory; the pony who invented it wasn't nearly stupid enough to actually try and test it.

"I shall relish your demise, Jack, even if this won't leave even the vaguest corpse behind. In fact, if I'm correct, this should completely destroy this entire building, and you and the two rulers with it. I figured out how to control it, and prevent it from destroying everything here."

"What? How can you control _that_?" Twilight said. She was terrified that he was so powerful, he could control the most dangerous spell ever conceptualized.

He closed his eyes, knowing that he wouldn't be able to see through the blinding, searing light. Even if he could, there wouldn't be much; this attack was so powerful, that they would be completely reduced to their base particles. Actually, no, they would be reduced even further, for the most part; at least half of the elementary particles would be reduced to mere one-dimensional strings.

"Goodbye, Jack."

"Oh my god, Lewis, we're going to die!" Simon yelled, reminding you he was there.

The Baron began to laugh, and unleashed his attack, which…did nothing.

"What? Impossible!"

He tried again, drawing in a bit less energy, just in case the sheer amount had overloaded and ended up fizzling out. But even this lesser amount didn't do anything.

"Why isn't this damned spell working as it should?" He clenched his teeth in rage; he had practiced this many times on abandoned planets (well, usually they were abandoned).

"I know why it didn't work!" Twilight shouted, stepping forward.

"Oh, really? Care to educate me?" The Baron asked in the snidest, most sarcastic voice he could muster.

"You used up too much energy. Between stopping time and sending five ponies twenty years in the future, plus all the smaller spells I'm sure you've done, you can't do anything else!"

"No! I…this is _not_ according to plan! You…you cheated! You did something to me!"

"Come on, Vlad," Jack said, barely cracking a smile. "You know that there's a difference between cheating and winning. For example…"

Even the Baron's superior reflexes were barely enough for him to react to what happened next: Rainbow Dash getting up from her unconscious form and kicking at him with her powerful hind legs. He was able to move away, but still got hit. The force of the attack, plus his own movement, contributed to him losing his balance and falling out of the building.

"Damnation!" He shouted, desperately unfurling his wings to stop himself from hitting the ground. It didn't work, and he collided with the solid cobblestone below.

"Ouch." He got up, dusted himself off, and looked back up at the group.

"You fools think you've won? Ha! You'll have to do much better than that!"

"Like what?" Jack responded, peering out through the destroyed wall.

"Figure out a way to stop me and Herobrine at the same time in two separate locations! As we speak, Herobrine is entering Ponyville, and he will kill everybody there unless you do something! Ha!"

"Shit!" Jack turned to face Rainbow Dash.

"What do we do?" She asked, panic in her voice.

"Don't worry. I already planned for something like this, and if I'm correct, it should succeed. We have to stay here and fight the Baron off."

"How?" Lewis asked, stepping between them. "Adam's frozen and Applejack is paralyzed."

"Actually, I'm starting to get a little feeling back!"

"It doesn't matter. We're still here, and if that's it, we have to make do with it. For Equestria."

Twilight nodded in solemn agreement. "For Equestria."

"For Equestria." Dash repeated, smiling.

Simon and Lewis glanced at each other.

"Ah, what the hell. For Equestria!" They said in unison.

"Yeah, sure, what you said." Applejack said, though she wasn't much help at the moment.

"Let's take him out." Jack looked at Dash for a moment. "By the way, Dash, very clever pretending to be unconscious."

"What? Oh, no, I was seriously out for a few seconds there."

"Oh. Well, I'm not getting younger. YA!"

Jack ran down the nearby staircase, the rest of his troupe following, bar Applejack, who was starting to regain feeling, and Adam, who was starting to thaw out.

()()()

This chapter was a little shorter than I would have liked it to be, but I've been feeling kind of sick this week, and wasn't able to do much writing. Next week, though, you'll get the fight against Herobrine, and it'll come a lot sooner and be a lot better. Until then, AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	8. The Showdown, Part Two of Three

Impossibilities

Chapter Eight

The Showdown, Part 2 of 3

()()()

For now, I am afraid we must venture away from Canterlot, and the epic battle, to focus on a new battle. As stated by the Baron previously, it was Herobrine's job to enter Ponyville and kill all the inhabitants, to provide a distraction for Jack and his crew. This would allow the Baron to kill Celestia and Luna without anybody stopping him, effectively making a perfect lose-lose situation for them. However, Jack had prepared for this very situation: He'd told Rarity, Spike, and Fluttershy to stay in the town and protect it from any dangers so he could stay in Canterlot and defeat the Baron.

The town was more or less doomed.

()()()

"Now, how shall I kill everyone here?" Herobrine asked himself, standing just outside the town. "Perhaps an onslaught of a thousand creepers? Or do I want to cut out the wait and just wire the place with TNT? Perhaps I could even instigate a zombie apocalypse. Oh, there are so many wonderful options; I should do all of them! But they would just be contradictory; TNT it is."

He smiled, and walked into the town, making sure to keep his head down to avoid suspicion. After a short time of wandering around, looking for good places to wire with high explosives, he came across a cart full of apples, with a sign stating that the owner had left.

"A bite to eat couldn't hurt." He picked up an apple with his hoof, not bothering to leave any payment. "Oh, wait, I don't need to eat. Silly me!" Rather than put it back, he threw it in a nearby rubbish bin, not even caring whether or not anybody noticed.

"Now, back to business. Where shall I put them all?"

He glanced to his left, and saw his perfect opportunity: a library some idiot had built inside of a tree for some inexplicable reason. It appeared to be in the exact location that, if it were filled with trinitrotoluene, the whole town would be destroyed by the blast, killing them all.

"Why, that's perfect! This is going to be very fun indeed."

()()()

But there was slight hitch in his plan, one you presumably know already. The building wasn't empty, as he would have preferred. Following Jack's orders precisely, Spike, along with two other ponies I'll get to in a moment, had gone to Twilight's residence, the tree library. If you read the last chapter, or even just the beginning of this chapter, you'll know already that I am of course referring to Rarity and Fluttershy. I suppose I'll have to describe the two, then.

…

You know, I really am not a big fan of long paragraphs of description, and every time I have to describe a new character, especially one from this show, that's just what I end up with. If you're reading this, I assume you know what they look like already because you watched "Friendship is Magic". In fact, I doubt there's much reason for me to describe them at all. If you haven't watched the show, and for some reason decided to read this story, just Google them.

But…it doesn't feel _right_ to just not give them any introduction at all. Very well, I shall give a short description of who they are, not what they look like.

Fluttershy's name is quite appropriate; she rarely talked, and mostly preferred the company of animals. That was a good thing; it was her job to care for the animals in and around Ponyville (I'm not entirely sure why that's necessary either). As for "flutter", well, she was a pegasus, so you do the math.

Rarity was quite different, though. A dressmaker by trade, she was rarely ever outside; she considered that very improper. As you can tell, she was obsessed with cleanliness and order. She utterly detested dirt, rain…anything that could get her dirty, she loathed to even look at. She was the only one who had bothered to bring anything usable as a weapon; a multitude of sewing needles. Along with that, Spike had a crush on her, for some strange reason; there was no way viable offspring could result from such a union.

I must reiterate that they were, for all intents and purposes, doomed. It may sound cynical, but…face it, they had almost no chance.

But, yet again, I digress. They were waiting around, quite awkwardly, as Rarity was silently admonishing the décor, Fluttershy didn't have much to say, and Spike was too busy gawking at the former. But that all ended when a knock came on the door. Of course, it was less a knock and more like two hooves smashing the door in.

"Whoa!" Spike shouted, snapping out of his partial stupor and jumping behind the couch. Rarity and Fluttershy screamed, the latter jumping right next to Spike at a speed even Rainbow Dash would find impressive. Rarity, on the other hand, took the offensive and readied a few needles, telekinetically pointing them straight at the intruder.

"Damn it!" Herobrine yelled. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Oh, sorry to spoil your plans!" Rarity said, preparing to fire her bizarre ammunition at him.

"I'm so scared." Herobrine lied, intentionally sounding as fake and sarcastic as possible. "You really think you have what it takes to fight me?"

He smiled, knowing that Rarity was not very willing to do anything violent.

"You always were completely pathetic, Rarity. Never getting anything physical accomplished. How utterly sad, that a girl with your talents never did anything of real, tangible importance. All you care about is making everything all nice and perfect and proper. That really is just the saddest thing I've ever heard." He started to fake cry, further mocking her.

That was enough to send Rarity just over the edge.

"What? That's not all I care about! I've gotten things accomplished!"

"Really? Such as?" Herobrine was sure he had her now.

Rarity began sputtering, before releasing a yell in frustration. The needles dropped to the floor, one stabbing into it and staying upright.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to do it."

He started chuckling, but was cut short when Rarity tackled him to the floor.

"What the…get off of me!" Herobrine tried to get rid of her, but she was unrelenting

"Take it back!" She yelled, trying to punch at him.

"NO!" Herobrine finally pushed her away and stood back up. To prevent her from doing the same, he hit her on the back of the neck before she could react properly, thus knocking her out instantly.

"Alright, who else wants to die?" He asked, turning to the couch. Fluttershy was still hidden behind it, but Spike was just barely peeking over, with a _very_ angry look on his face.

"Nobody hurts Rarity and gets away with it as long as I'm around!"

To Herobrine's surprise, he leapt off the couch, and rolled when he hit the ground, grabbing the upright needle and getting into a battle stance, holding it out like a blade.

"You're kidding, right?" Herobrine asked, confused. "You're kidding. You're not seriously going to use a needle as a sword. You're not that stupid."

Spike looked at it, and got out of his stance, realizing that he did look pretty stupid.

"Huh, you're right. I guess I should GET RID OF IT!"

With this decent attempt at a one-liner, he threw the needle at Herobrine, actually managing to hit him in the knee.

"What the…OW! DAMN IT!" he began jumping around, which only dug the needle in deeper. He wasn't bleeding very much, but there was still some coming out.

"You little brat!" Fuming with rage, Herobrine kicked him into a shelf, knocking several books off and Spike out. A small wound on Spike's head was starting to bleed out, staining a book that had opened up on his lap, which was about the circulatory system.

"Stupid little…" Herobrine grabbed the needle in his mouth, and yanked it out, spurting out just a little bit of blood.

"Now, where are you, Fluttershy? I know you haven't moved an inch since I started…"

Daring a peek from behind the couch, Fluttershy saw what the Norwegian fellow had done. She let out a quiet gasp, which was still enough to betray her location.

"There you are." Herobrine turned towards the couch, a disturbingly fake smile plastered on his face. "How about you come over here and just surrender right now so I won't have to find you and torture you to death slowly…"

Fluttershy closed her eyes, and began thinking, before doing something she normally wouldn't have: walked out and looked him straight in his blank, empty eyes.

"Oh, look at what we have here. You've finally decided to take a stance and stand up for yourself. Bravo."

She took a deep breath, and began talking to him.

"How dare you."

"What?"

"How dare you think you can just walk in here and starting attacking us like it's nothing."

"Hey, what do you think you're…"

"How _dare_ you think you can kill us all without even trying."

"Oh, shit…don't do the eye thing…"

"HOW DARE YOU HURT US AT ALL!"

Fluttershy opened her eyes, showing that they had changed: instead of the soft, caring eyes she usually had, they were commanding and brutal. In fact, they made Herobrine feel quite uncomfortable, and that wasn't easy to do.

"Oh, damn, you did the eye thing.

"First of all, it's called 'the stare'. Second of all, leave Ponyville, and _never come back, ever._"

Herobrine tried to stare her down, but he failed, and felt a sudden urge to run out. He still tried to fight it, though.

"I…you don't scare me! I'm staying!"

His left eye started twitching, and he finally broke down.

"GAH!" Herobrine ran out the door, finally giving up on Fluttershy. Although, you have to admit, that sounds pretty pathetic. What he would tell the Baron, I'm not quite sure…but that doesn't matter.

()()()

It was some time later, and both Spike and Rarity had come out of their unconsciousness. Fluttershy had found some bandages for Spike's wound, which she determined to not be too serious. Rarity had tried to put the door back up, but she only sort of propped it up against the frame. After they regrouped, they had gone right back to square one: sitting around silently, waiting for something to happen.

After some time of this, Rarity decided to ask Fluttershy a question.

"You were the last one of us, right?"

"Yeah…"

"What did you do to get rid of that horrendous ruffian?"

"Oh, yeah…I think I might have accidentally used the Stare again…I didn't think it would work on ponies. It's only ever happened on animals."

"The Stare?" Spike asked. "Really? Not bad."

"Yeah, I guess it is kind of impressive, what I just did." Fluttershy smiled.

They say history repeats itself, and this was one occasion where it certainly did. Someone knocked on the door, and Rarity's pathetic attempt at a repair resulted in it crashing to the floor, revealing the group that had left a while ago, looking much worse for the wear.

Applejack looked the most normal, but something about her movements seemed…off, as if she had forgotten how to move correctly, and was just now learning again by teaching herself.

Simon and Lewis were in a rather off state as well. They had no visible injuries, but seemed wobbly, as if they had lost their sense of balance and direction.

Adam was soaking wet, and shivering quite violently. His monocle was badly fogged, and his hat had crumpled from the water he had apparently been submerged in.

Twilight fared little better. Her fur appeared to have been singed, although only mildly. She had a very bad case of split ends; she probably hadn't been directly hit with fire, but clearly had gotten close to it.

Jack and Rainbow Dash, though…they looked awful. Both were covered with cuts and bruises, each also having one distinguishing injury: A large cut ran all the way from Jack's neck down to his cutie mark, jagged and bleeding. As for Dash, her left eye had been blackened, and her face was splattered with blood, more of which was coming out of her nose.

"Whoa, what happened to you guys?" Spike asked.

"Don't ask." Jack said, practically growling. "Don't. Fucking. Ask."

"Well…what happened to the Baron?"

"We beat him," Dash answered, sputtering out some blood on the second word. "Barely."

()()()

Next time, I show you what happened to this group, and why they're in such a bad state. Until then, here's a general timeline of events since I uploaded the last chapter:

The first episode of season 2 aired (which, by the way, kicked ass.)

President Obama was reelected.

Scientists in China discovered how to warp space-time, making Star Trek a reality.

Life on other planets was discovered.

Humanity evolved past requiring bodies, and became sentient, ultra-intelligent clouds of gas.

The sun finally ran out of fuel, and collapsed into a cold black lump.

Until the next chapter, this has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	9. The Showdown, Part Three of Three

Impossibilities

Chapter 9

The Showdown, part 3 of 3

()()()

"Oh. Well, I'm not getting younger. YA!"

Jack ran down the nearby staircase, the rest of his troupe following, bar Applejack, who was starting to regain feeling, and Adam, who was starting to thaw out.

()()()

"A minor setback, but no matter." The Baron looked back up at the tower. "It will be a terrible shame, Jack, your death." He closed his eyes, smiling. "I did have quite the respect for you."

"Your respect is the _last_ thing I want."

The Baron opened his eyes, shocked at this interruption. Jack was standing right in front of him, as were Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Simon, and Lewis.

"How did you get down here so…never mind." The Baron readied an attack. "Your pathetic little group is down two members. Even with them, you'd have precisely no chance against me whatsoever."

"That's where you're wrong." Twilight stepped forward.

"Yeah!" Dash stepped forward as well. "We'll never stop until you go down!"

The Baron stared at them for a moment, before laughing, somewhat ruining the moment.

"How delightfully optimistic. That will make your utter defeat even more enjoyable for me, watching as your belief that you could possibly stop me now shatters as easily as your bones."

"Oh, will you stop with the bloody speeches already?" Simon walked out in front this time. "It's really getting old."

"What? No! I'm merely saying the blatantly obvious truth. In fact, if you can't see it, that's just downright saddening."

Lewis glared at him. "What are you talking about? You're the one who can't see anything."

"What are you…"

A blinding flash of light came forth from Lewis's horn, causing the Baron to momentarily stumble and fall into a bush.

"Where am I?" He asked, his eyes spinning around while trying to correct after this devastating assault.

Rainbow Dash snickered. "You're right at home, dearest!" She said to him, taking on a really exaggerated British grandmother-type voice, to trick the fellow sitting in the shrub. "I just made cookies for you and all your little friends!"

The rest of them started giggling, even Jack. Lewis was the first, and only to join in, pretending to be his father.

"Heya, son, how about we play some baseball out in the backyard, eh sport?"

"Okay…wait a moment!" The Baron shook his head and regained his composure. "You fools! How dare you mock and insult me in this manner!"

"Oh, damn it."

"You'll pay for that, Brindley!"

The Baron cast a spell at Lewis, who soon found he was unable to move at all; he was effectively a breathing statue.

"I'll deal with you later. Speaking of which, Jack, you are now down three members."

"H-h-how about j-just one d-down?" Adam popped out from behind him, shivering violently.

"What?" The Baron turned around. "How did you get out of that?"

"Once m-my head thawed out, I w-was able to m-m-melt the rest."

The Baron started to get mad. "And what of Applejack?"

"She sh-should be c-coming down soon enough."

"OW!" Applejack yelled, having just fallen down the flight of stairs. "Consarn it! I can't feel my legs!"

The Baron sighed. "This is getting more and more tragic every second. Honestly, you should be thanking me for killing you all."

"Oh, yeah, right!" Simon looked at him head on. "We'll take you down, no matter what!"

"Well, come on then! Hit me!"

"YAAAH!" Simon ran at the black pony at full speed.

"Yawn." The Baron cast the same spell, freezing Simon in mid-run.

"Can't any of you at least _try_ and defeat me? This is starting to get very boring."

Twilight growled. "I won't allow you to hurt the princess!"

"Oh, I'm so scared!" The Baron pretended to be frightened, even putting his hooves up to his cheeks and acting flustered.

"Adam!" Twilight commanded, "Help me out here!"

"R-right on it!"

Twilight prepared an attack spell, Adam donating some of his energy.

"Hmph. Even if I can't destroy everything here, I am still able to do this!"

Adam realized what was about to happen, and without really thinking, he teleported away to somewhere he didn't even know, leaving Twilight stranded.

"Goodbye, Twilight!" The Baron yelled. She cast her spell, but due to the Baron's counter-spell, it backfired, exploding in her face and throwing her backwards in a fiery cataclysm. When she landed, she was pretty much out of it; her fur and hair were both singed quite badly, and she wasn't moving. Thankfully, a slight groan confirmed she was still alive.

"Twilight!" Dash yelled, turning to the Baron. "You son of a…a _bitch!_"

Even Jack was surprised at that outburst. Dash was not known for obscene language. In fact, none of them were. Adam had actually guessed that they didn't have swear words, but that theory was obviously false.

"I beg your pardon?" The Baron asked, shocked himself at this insult.

"I called you a son of a bitch! Nobody hurts my friends and gets away with it when I'm around!"

"Well, you are the representation of loyalty, I suppose." The Baron used his magic to remove both his bowler hat and ruby monocle and set them atop a lamp. "Let's see how powerful your loyalty really is!" 

The Baron started off, by leaping quite high in the air, and trying do a downward punch at Rainbow Dash, who easily dodged it. At the same time, Jack tried a spinning kick at the back of the Baron's neck, but the Baron slid to the left, putting them in much the same situation as before, although turned around.

"Nice." Dash said, heaving slightly. "Now it's my turn!"

She began an impossibly fast flurry of punches and kicks, which the Baron was only just able to block against. Eventually, when Dash managed to back him into a wall, she landed a hit right on the Baron's lower jaw, dislocating it.

"Argh!" he yelled, muffled by his inability to move his mouth correctly. He corrected it with great speed, and in retaliation, he flew up and fired a concussive blast just to the side of Dash's back, throwing her several yards away. When she stopped moving, she had several small cuts all over her body, and a few bruises. She lay for a moment, but quickly stood back up.

"My, my, Dash, you're very resilient!" The Baron had to admit that the fact she still had consciousness was quite impressive. "You may actually provide a slight challenge!"

"Don't leave me out!" Jack growled, flapping his wings and going straight up, trying to go past the cloud layer.

"Oh, Jack, I wasn't planning on letting Dash have all the fun."

The Baron flew up after him, preparing a concussive blast like the one he just used.

"And…now!" Jack yelled, readying his plan.

The Baron fired his attack but Jack curved back, flying upside-down for a few seconds and then straight down. The magical blast flew off, bursting through a few clouds before harmlessly dissipating in the atmosphere.

"What on earth?" The Baron took note of what Jack was doing, and knew what he would do.

"Goodbye, Jack!" He flew under Jack, pointing his horn straight up at him. Jack gasped, his eyes widening. Moving his wings in a particular way, Jack moved away, but it was not enough. Schadenfreude's horn didn't kill him, as the Baron would have wanted, but it did create a large gash in the side of Jack's body.

At first, Jack felt nothing. But when the horrific wound made its pain obvious, he screamed in agony, his wings lost their form, and he fell to the ground, landing on top of a bush cut in the shape of the sun. Dash gasped in horror; had they lost? It certainly looked like they had.

"Did I…is he? No, it couldn't be."

The Baron floated down, next to Jack's body. "I did it! He's dead!" He began a joyous round of laughter.

"No…" Dash sulked, her wings drooping.

"Oh, yes, Dash, oh, yes!" he paused, to let out another giggle. "I killed him! Your hero is no more!"

_Come on, Dash_, she thought, rage starting to course through her body, _you can do it, you can beat him._

"YAAAAAH!"

Dash charged forward, unleashing a furious torrent of attacks that made her previous attempt look downright pathetic in comparison.

"My word!" The Baron knew it would be impossible to block them all, and began running away like a pansy.

"Get back here!" Rainbow Dash had become…not herself. She was usually a lot calmer than this, but now, she had become an enraged psychopath, who was on the hunt for Schadenfreude's blood.

"What to do, what to do…" The Baron looked around, trying to think of a plan.

"TAKE THIS!"

By the time the Baron turned around, Dash had already kicked him in the face, knocking out a few teeth and creating a nasty crack in his jaw.

The Baron screamed in pain, which was fairly unknown to him. Using up more of his magic power, he repaired the damage, allowing him to get back in the fight.

"You'll regret that, Dash!"

He did a backflip, using his wings to kick up off the ground and get additional distance and force. Dash panicked, and didn't know what she could have done. Her indecision cost her dearly, as the Baron's hoof collided with her face, shattering her nose and splitting her lip. As blood started pouring out of her face, the Baron started talking.

"Oh, look. I guess even loyalty can't save you now!"

He raised his front hoof, got up on his hind legs, and punched her in the eye. Her pain even more brutal now, she collapsed to the pavement, losing her will to stand.

"So, this is how the best flyer in Equestria dies. A pathetic, bloody heap upon the sidewalk. Outright shameful."

He raised himself up on his hind legs, preparing to cave her head in.

"Oh, no you don't!"

The Baron turned his head, and saw Applejack running right at him, twirling a lasso in her mouth.

"What? Impossible!"

Suddenly caught off-guard, he wasn't able to move fast enough to avoid the rope, and in moments, all his legs were tied up and he was on the ground, trying to shake free.

"What is this?"

Applejack smiled at him. "That's it? A lasso?"

"Hardly."

The next instant, the rope had burned away, and the Baron was back up, ready to face down his final opponent. But there was a slight issue; Rainbow Dash wasn't finished yet. She was barely able to climb to her hooves, and get right next to Applejack. Her nose was still bleeding quite badly, and her eye was starting to look much worse.

The Baron looked at them together for a few moments, before talking again.

"Impressive that you still fight, Dash. A shame that it will all go to waste."

And then, out of nowhere, Adam appeared next to them.

"Ah, here you all are." Still shivering, he stared at the Baron. "You're going to lose, I hope you know."

Schadenfreude was growing tired of this charade, and decided to speak out against it.

"Enough! Enough! Stop this foolish nonsense! I refuse to fight you any longer! Can you miserable failures not see? You've lost! Rainbow Dash is half-dead, Adam just broke out of a prison of ice, and I'm sure that even Applejack doesn't have all the feeling back in her body. Just give up!"

"Oh, we ain't stopping." Applejack responded.

"That would be the only way for us to lose!" Dash tried to sweep his legs, but the Baron swiftly avoided it.

"I guess it would be pretty stupid of me to give up, too!" Adam teleported above him, and as he fell, kicked him square in the horn, breaking it in half. The top half of it clattered to the floor.

At first, nothing happened. But soon, all of the Baron's magical energy flowed out of the broken appendage, a giant river of burning light, forming impossibly beautiful shapes and colors.

"YOU FOOL!" He shouted trying to pick up the broken part. "DO YOU EVEN REALIZE WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

"Yeah. I just won! Baron Von Schadenfreude, TELEPORT!"

The flow of energy suddenly ceased, and began flowing around the Baron in a giant hurricane.

"NO! I can't lose…not now! I'll be back, Adam! And next time, I'll have help!"

And then, he disappeared, time in Canterlot starting up again. The only thing that Dash and Applejack could do was gape at the sky, trying to figure out what just happened.

()()()

In the tower that the Baron had blasted a hole in, way up in the top, stood a very important figure in Equestria. In fact, she was the most important, because she created the sun itself, and was responsible for raising it every morning, not to mention the fact that she ruled Equestria, period. Regal in every part of her form, having both horn and wings, no pony had an excuse to not know her name: Celestia.

Before the Baron had so rudely frozen time, she was reading a letter from her student, Twilight Sparkle, just like every week. But halfway through, she suddenly got the feeling that something was horribly wrong. She glanced out the window, and was shocked to see a small purple form lying on the ground, completely without motion.

"No."

Not even caring about anything else, she teleported down to Twilight's body, to see if she was right. It appeared she was.

"No!"

A tear fell from her eye. But her fears were rather needless, as she knew when Twilight groaned and opened her eyes.

"Where am I?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"You're in Canterlot. What are you doing here?"

"The Baron…you're in danger…you need to leave…"

"Twilight!" Dash, done gaping in shock, ran over to her. "Are you okay?"

"What's it look like?" Celestia stepped back as she tried to stand up, but it quickly became obvious that she wouldn't be able to get up without help. This didn't go unnoticed by any of them, and Dash put her arm around her, pulling her away from the ground.

"Don't worry, I got ya."

"Wait, what about Jack?" Adam began looking around, before seeing the bush that he landed in. He was breathing, and was starting to come to, before completely jolting awake.

"Holy…what happened? Where's the Baron?"

Wrestling out of his perch, he darted around, trying to find his enemy.

"Jack! You're alright." Adam sighed. "Don't worry, the Baron's gone. He won't be bothering us again for awhile."

"Ah," Celestia interjected, "you must be Jack."

"Yeah, that's me. You got the message?"

"Considering you taped several copies on my door, I don't see how I couldn't have."

"Wait, what did you do?" Twilight asked, an angry tone in her voice.

"This was critical information, Twilight." Adam explained. "I had to make sure she would see it."

"So…now what?" Jack asked.

"I want to go home." Applejack answered.

"Yeah…I can't feel my eye at all."

"Allow me." Celestia offered. Her horn began to glow, and in moments, they were back in Ponyville, in front of Twilight's house. At the same time, she had fixed Simon and Lewis' slight issue of being frozen.

()()()

Much later…

At the Baron's facility, something else entirely was going on. He was behind a desk, studying three people he was quite interested in. They were all in shadow, completely unseen.

"So," he began. "It's a choice between Chester Fieldman," he eyed the first candidate, "Krastos Altopokoleps, and…"

"Tirek," the third man completed, his voice sounding demonic, yet elegant.

"Yes, thank you. After careful consideration, I've decided to hire each of you for different jobs."

"What?" Chester asked, his voice cracking. "That wasn't the deal!"

"Don't worry, I'll pay you all at double the rate. Please report to the teleporter room; I've finally determined how to let you keep your normal forms. You will receive instructions on your jobs later; please do not leave the location I have set up until I arrive."

"It is good that we stay as humans." Krastos' voice was obviously Greek, and his voice had more gravel in it than a driveway. "I like having fingers."

"Indeed." The Baron smiled. "I wish you all luck. Dismissed!"

His three clients got up and left, walking towards the room that the Baron had referenced.

"About time I solved that problem. I would love to introduce Twilight and her friends to my sword…"

He laughed.

()()()

I'm taking a break for a while (specifically, a week after Minecraft 1.9 gets released) . Until then, this has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out!


	10. Past, Present, and Future

Impossibilities

Chapter 10

Past, Present, and Future

()()()

Chester was more than used to the transition between universes; it was one he made constantly. This was no different, although it took him a fair amount of time to realize that he was still human, as opposed to a strangely proportioned equine. It was fairly dark in the room he was in; he could only barely tell what was ahead of him. To his surprise, the Baron was already sitting in front of him, reading a leather-bound volume of forgotten lore.

"There you are, Chester."

"How'd you get here before me?" Chester demanded.

"Oh, I have my ways." Reading an amusing (to him) passage, the Baron grew a terrible smile, releasing a small chuckle. "This is a very interesting book, you simply must give it a try."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be sure to. What's my assignment?"

"Oh, very well." He stood up, leaving the book in his seat. "I'll need you to go to Canterlot, and kill one of the two rulers."

"Anyone specific in mind?"

Adjusting his monocle, the Baron thought for a moment. "Yes, actually. I'm very sure you're familiar with her."

"Stop talking in riddles. Give me the _name_."

A single word left the Baron's lips, a name; when Chester heard it, he couldn't help but be filled with rage and hatred and guilt.

"Luna."

They paused, waiting for the other to speak. Chester was the first.

"Where is she?"

"If I am correct, she will be studying in the royal library by the time you arrive at Canterlot."

"Uh-huh. And what about those other two guys?"

"In due time, in due time." The Baron waved his hand. "Their jobs don't make a pennyworth of difference to yours. Do you have your…special watch?"

Chester reached his arm out, showing his gold wristwatch. It wasn't working properly; it wasn't supposed to. The hour hand was straight on the twelve, but the minute hand was missing. It was, in fact, a deadly magical weapon, with twelve individual functions, for each position of its only hand.

"Always."

"Excellent. I'll see you out. You may want to be careful, though; your appearance is quite…jarring."

"I'll be sure."

The Baron stepped to the door and opened it, looking outside onto a dirt road. Chester covered his eyes as he stepped out into the bright sun, revealing his form.

He was a young man, about 25 years of age. Messy brown hair covered his forehead, some of it peeking over his spectacles. A small pencil-like moustache covered his upper lip, and a few scraggly hairs created a forest on his cheeks. He was wearing a brown overcoat, beneath it a white shirt bearing the Greek theta sign. Along with that, he had basic denim trousers, along with a pair of well-worn sneakers.

Looking at the idyllic landscape, he sneered.

"This place is going straight to Hell in a few years, just you goddamn ponies wait."

He looked to the left, seeing a huge mountain, a glistening castle built into its side.

"Bingo."

He started running off, but had to duck behind a tree when he heard approaching hooves over a hill in the path.

"So…are you alright, Dash?"

The voice was that of a southern woman, somewhere in her twenties.

"Yeah, I'm fine." This voice was vaguely Californian in its inflection, though it was badly clogged by…something. "My nose still hurts, though…ow."

"I can imagine. You were bleedin' like that for almost an hour!"

"Well, it stopped. Took it long enough."

After a moment of thought, Chester recognized the two voices as those of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, two very close friends.

"Are you sure you're going to be able to make it through the party? You know how crazy Pinkie can get sometimes."

"I've been to them before. I think I'll be fine."

Chester cringed, recalling whose party they were referring to, that fun-loving, excitable baker that would throw a celebration for almost anything.

"I'm just saying, you really don't look it."

Chester dared a peek. There they were, the rainbow-haired pegasus and the blonde farmer. At first glance, Dash looked perfectly fine, but a more thorough search would reveal that the fur on her face, especially around her mouth, had become tinged with red. Chester realized that this fact, combined with the way her voice sounded, supported that she had become victim to a rather painful injury, most likely a broken nose, followed with the rupturing of a vein within the upper nasal cavity.

"Applejack, I'm fine!" There was a slight hint of anger in her voice.

"If you say so."

They continued down the path, not saying another word between them.

Chester waited a few moments, listening for other approaching ponies, but heard nothing, and ran away.

As he was heading for Canterlot, he recalled the other two people that the Baron had hired out, wondering what their job was to be. That thought was pushed out of his mind quickly enough, rationalizing that it didn't matter to him.

()()()

For a pony, the trip would normally have taken about an hour and a half. However, Chester had two advantages: he could actually go a bit faster than any of them, and he didn't bother using the path, instead taking a multitude of shortcuts. By the end, he had cut down the trip from ninety minutes to about thirty.

He found himself outside a massive staircase, leading up towards the central courtyard of the castle. Two guards, both of them gray pegasi, dressed in beautiful gold armor, stood to make sure that no one unwanted gained entry. A well-cut topiary prevented either from seeing him. He noted that such placement of flora was not conducive to security.

"Not a problem."

Switching his watch to 1, he aimed at the one to the left.

"Not a problem at all."

A flex of his wrist, and a burst of red. The guard slumped over, his eyes rolling backwards.

"What the…"

The other guard was cut short by a similar burst. Both of them were completely under, making the security of the area effectively nil.

"Too easy."

The man leaped out from behind his place, starting his ascent up the massive stairs.

()()()

As he came to the top, he noticed another issue: the entrance courtyard was absolutely crowded, and there would be no way for him to remain unnoticed. Unless…

This time, it would be the seventh hour needed, his grappling hook. If he could hit a stable part of the cliff, and climb above the castle itself, it would then only be a matter of entering the library and killing his target.

But first, he would have to get up. Making sure nothing was approaching, he headed back down the staircase, at the first point he would be out of view from them. A small outcropping was right above him, providing the perfect opportunity.

"Here goes nothing."

Chester pointed his arm at the rock, and flexed out his index finger, firing a rope of magic energy up at it, connected to a metal hook. It burst through, extending four prongs outwards within it.

"Going up."

Another flex of his wrist, and he was slowly pulled upwards, supporting himself against the stone.

In about thirty seconds, he was pulled up all the way, overlooking the castle as a whole.

"I remember this place…if that's the center," he pointed at the entry gate, "then the library must be…" his finger moved upwards, until he was pointing at a large tower.

"Right there."

A complex entry plan began swirling around in his mind: if he could get his grapple around the flagpole on top, he would be able to swing down and roll through a window, getting him inside.

He aimed at the pole, but recalled a vague memory…

()()()

He was…different, shall I say. Rather than a human, he was a pony; a unicorn, to be precise. To be even more precise, he was astonishingly drab, with his brown coat and grayed-out hair. His cutie mark was a theta; exactly like the shirt he now wore.

As for what he was doing, it was about as boring as him; he was laying down in that precise spot, a book filled with obscure mathematical equations sitting next to him. A closer inspection would reveal that he was studying the magic properties that numbers have.

"Therefore," he announced, to no one at all but himself, "It can be shown that root pi over the coefficient of 2e to the power of one half…"

He stopped, hearing the noise of hooves coming up behind him.

"You've been up here all day."

The voice was female, and paradoxically both soft and forceful.

"I've…had a lot to work on, Luna."

She started to respond, but the memory started fading out…

()()()

Chester snapped back into the present day, slowly beginning to recall exactly what had happened all those centuries ago.

"Luna…"

His face contorted into an expression of hatred and rage.

"LUNA!"

He fired, the grappling hook wrapping perfectly around the flagpole. An observer would have considered him utterly suicidal; the library only had one open window leading into it, and at the speed he was going as he leaped off the cliff, it would be highly improbable for him to survive.

But survive he did. At the last second, he turned the grappling hook off, and dived to the window, rolling as he landed to minimize the damage.

Suddenly, somewhere in the middle of the library, he heard a voice. It was female, somewhat aged, mumbling incoherently about complex mathematics. It could barely be heard over the clacking of an abacus and the turning of pages.

Not knowing who it was, Chester changed his watch yet again.

"Thus, it can be shown…wait, who's there?" The abacus ceased, and the pages stopped turning.

"Damn it!" Chester groaned.

"Please, if you're lost, I can help you find your way. I wouldn't mind."

The voice was so much clearer now. Chester couldn't believe he hadn't recognized it at first. Slowly, his mind began reeling back again …

()()()

"This is a beautiful night."

He was standing on a balcony, unknown to most of those in Canterlot. Both of them always thought that was very strange; it had the best view, hooves down.

As for his company; well, she was royalty, so she had both wings and a horn. In fact, she was Celestia's sister, and counterpart, the ruler of night and the moon; Luna.

"Thanks," she said. "I try."

"I can tell. Anypony can tell…if they stayed up this late."

Luna sighed. "Yeah. Sometimes…it just feels as if no one respects what I do." She scowled, and her voice took on a harsher tone. "It's always my sister that gets all the attention! 'Oh, look at the pretty sky'! Come on! I do all the real work! She just talks and makes social appearances!"

"Luna, don't say that!" Chester answered. "You're respected! You have _lots_ of respect! If it weren't for you, everything would…fall…apart…"

()()()

Chester snapped back to reality again, the memory going by in an instant. Standing in front of him, exactly as she had appeared in the memory, was Luna.

"Who are you?" She asked. "_What_ are you?"

Barely even noticing, Chester pointed his watch straight at her. She didn't know what to do, and simply stared at it.

"What, do you not know what this is? I can't blame you, it's the only one. It's a magic watch, and it's a weapon, and I'm going to shoot you with it!"

"Wait…no…it can't be you…"

Luna thought about it for a moment.

"Chester?"

"Oh, look. You finally remember who the _hell_ I am!"

"I…it's been so long…"

"Of course it's been long! You ruined everything we had! EVERYTHING!"

"No, Chester, you have to understand, I didn't…"

"I understand everything! You thought you were under-appreciated!" His hands began to shake, his rage increasing every second. "You though no one cared about you? WHAT ABOUT ME? You destroyed everything that I had!"

"But we're here…we can be together again…"

"Why. The. FUCK? Would I want anything to do with you?"

Luna realized that the route of diplomacy would only get her six feet beneath the ground.

"What will you get if you shoot me? All you'll have is my blood on your hands. My sister will hunt you down until justice has been done the instant you kill me."

Chester stared at her for a few more moments.

"If you came here intent on killing me, fine." Luna closed her eyes. "Do it."

Chester was intent to…but he didn't. He couldn't. No matter what he thought, he would not be able to do it.

"No."

He sank to his knees, staring at his wrist.

"No."

Luna opened her eyes, and saw that Chester had begun to tear up. Judging by the lack of sudden horrific pain on her person, he had decided not to shoot her.

"I've been waiting a thousand years…so I could get revenge on what you did to me. On what I thought you did to me, I mean."

"What are you trying to say?" Luna was speaking much softer now. Chester laughed a bit, before continuing. "I just wandered around in that time…and I learned so much…how to live so much longer…you changed me. I know so many new things. I learned them…so I could kill you. You see this watch?"

Pulling back the cuff of his shirt, he displayed his timepiece for her.

"I built it. It doesn't tell time…it's a weapon. Depending on the hour it's set to, it can do various magic things."

Looking to the floor, he shook his head and let out a small chuckle.

"It took a hell of a time to figure this out. And I was going to waste it on some stupid petty revenge fantasy."

This fascinating monologue was interrupted by the sound of metal being pulled from a sheath, and a cold point pressing against his neck. Chester was unable to tell what the blade looked like, but Luna could easily see its design. It was a gentleman's dueling sword, a rapier, with an obsidian-trimmed steel blade. However, not even she could tell that it had been filed down to the molecular level, allowing it to easily slice through almost anything, or more likely pierce through almost anything. The handle's guard was elegant in its simultaneous simplicity and complexity; thin sections of gold in a cross-weave pattern, perfectly identical rubies highlighting each intersection. A blood-red diamond capped the bottom, if only to further increase the sheer cost of the thing.

"Chester…what are you doing?"

It was the Baron, standing right behind Chester, his deadly rapier millimeters away from a brutal murder.

"Would you mind getting that out of my neck? It's kind of distracting."

The Baron clenched his teeth. "I pay you an obscene amount to enact your revenge upon the woman who tore you apart…and this is what you do with it?"

"Wait, you were getting paid?" This was enough to make Luna rethink everything. "You were going to take money for this?"

"W-well, I…"

"That is irrelevant," Schadenfreude poked his sword in a bit further, drawing a spot of blood. "What is relevant is why Mr. Fieldman has chosen to, in layman's terms, 'wimp out' on me."

"This is why, you son of a bitch!"

In a split second, Chester kicked out his employer's legs from beneath him, turning away so the thin blade wouldn't harm him. As the Baron got up, Chester switched his watch to the "9" position, and flexed his wrist, releasing a blade of magic energy, bright enough to fill the entire room with the light of a sun. Luna turned away, as her old friend began striking at the Baron's sword.

"You're good at this," the Baron noted. "Quite good in fact." He ducked beneath a wild swing of the magic blade. "Although you're beginning to slip up a bit."

"Shut up!"

Chester attempted an uppercut, trying to stab into the Baron's lower jaw. It was easily dodged, but the brim of his hat was struck, knocking it away.

"How dare you!" The Baron yelled, picking it up again. "This is a very expensive piece of wear! If you have no respect for it, then I honestly-OOF!"

A spear of glittering azure pushed him against one of the many bookcases, forcing several tomes off.

"You're welcome." Luna came up next to him.

"Combat magic? Impressive."

"I invented that spell, of course."

"It certainly is impressive, Luna," the Baron rose up from his crumpled stance. "And even if you're a lost cause, Chester, neither of you, or even Celestia herself, could possibly stand any chance against Tirek. I'll be sure to give him your pay as well, once you are disposed of. And as for Krastos…well, I'm sure that you'll both try to stop Tirek, and even if you did split up, you would both be doomed. This is, frankly, the ideal lose-lose situation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to welcome some other good fellows. Cheers!"

Before either of them could react, the Baron disappeared, leaving nothing but a messy pile of old, dusty books.

It took some time, but Chester finally spoke up.

"Luna, your sister is in danger. You need to go help her, _now_."

"But what about…"

Chester cut her off. "I'm going to Ponyville to stop that Greek bastard."

"I can get you there."

Chester shut his eyes, and was whisked away to the small town, in a desperate attempt to stop the massive Mediterranean mercenary…

()()()

Okay, okay, Minecraft 9.1 isn't out yet, but the pre-release is, so close enough. This time, I want you to tell me what you'd like to see first: the fight against Tirek, or against Krastos? Leave your opinion in a review, and until then, this has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out. (Microsoft word really hates that sentence, for some reason.)


	11. A New Foe

Impossibilities

Chapter 11

A New Foe, Part 1

()()()

There are a multitude of buildings in Ponyville, of all different shapes and sizes. However, none of them are as strange, unique, or indeed memorable as the local bakery, Sugarcube Corner. It had been there for a while, and some absolute madman (madpony?) had decided to make it out of various confections (although they weren't edible; that tends to happen when the recipe calls for a multitude of ultra-strength preservatives). That fellow had passed away long ago, as had the next owners, thus leaving it to the current proprietors, Mr. And Mrs. Cake. However, they often had to leave to make deliveries, giving control of the shop to…Pinkie Pie, that excitable party-thrower. Today was one such time, which was very convenient, as there had been no less than four new ponies introduced that day, and that was more than enough reason to celebrate in her book.

But a party isn't a party without guests, and she knew the perfect ones: her friends, of course! Along with as many other ponies as she could get.

Allow me to go back in time a bit, before Chester teleported away. She had spent every moment since her, uh, "meeting" with Simon and Lewis preparing for it, pulling out her streamers and balloons and treats. Trouble was, by the time she had finished setting up, not only had the two colts disappeared, but so too had all of her friends. None of them were in any of the usual places; everywhere she searched had a major lack of them, which was very strange. By the third check on Sweet Apple Acres, she had gotten suspicious.

"Something's funny here, and not in the good way!" She announced, leaning against an apple tree.

"Who ya talkin' to?" A large, red, blonde-maned colt with a yoke around his neck walked up to her.

"Oh, hiya, Macintosh! Have you seen Applejack anywhere?"

"Last time I saw her, she was talkin' to a unicorn feller in a big ol' fancy hat. Then they just…disappeared outta nowhere."

Pinkie thought back. She vaguely recalled an electric yellow unicorn in a large topper.

"Oh, him? What would that guy want with Applejack?"

Macintosh grunted. "I don't know."

Pinkie put her hoof up to her chin, deep in thought. But that was pushed out of her mind as she saw Applejack walking towards the farm, along with a very bloodied Rainbow Dash.

"Oh my gosh, Dashie, are you alright?" Pinkie ran over, shocked at the state she was in.

"Ugh…Pinkie?" Dash weakly looked up. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you guys! Where'd you run off to?"

"Sugarcube, I think the question is more why that Jack feller didn't try and get you to help!"

"Help with what?" Pinkie asked quizzically.

Dash sighed. "It would take too long to explain, and I'm tired."

"So…I guess you're not coming to the welcome party for the new ponies, then?" Pinkie sounded disappointed.

"Oh, yeah, the party…" Dash looked away. "I don't know, Pinkie…they can get pretty hectic, you know."

"That's okay…" Pinkie put on a large smile. "I'm sure everypony else will have a great time!"

She was trying to sound cheerful, but it only half worked. There was still a twinge of disappointment in her voice.

"Oh, fine. I'll…need to rest for a bit, though. When is it?"

"Uh…" Pinkie hadn't actually thought that far ahead. "Five o'clock?"

"Yeah, sure. Everyone else is at the library, I think."

"Hooray!" Pinkie ran off at a speed that would put even Dash to shame.

"I still don't know how she does that." Dash noted. "I'd better get myself cleaned up. And where _did_ Applejack go, anyway?"

()()()

"Hello, Twilight?" Pinkie had just arrived at the library, and was wildly pounding on the door.

"Pinkie?" Twilight opened the door, looking at the bubbly pink pony standing there.

"Hi, Twilight, are those new guys here?"

Twilight winced slightly, knowing exactly what Pinkie wanted.

"Well…yes, but we're kind of in bad shape. I don't think a party for them is really the best…"

"A party?" Simon asked, suddenly interested. "What's the occasion?"

"You, cause you're new, silly! I always throw a party for new ponies!"

"Well, that doesn't sound too…"

"Simon," Jack interjected, "Could you come over here?"

"What?" Not knowing what else to do, Simon walked over.

"I think the Baron is planning his own surprise, if you know what I'm saying." Jack was speaking in a low whisper, trying to hide himself from the others.

"Uh, not really?"

Jack sighed. "I think he hired a mercenary of some sort to _kill us_ where he failed."

"Uh, Jack…" Twilight began, "We can hear you."

His eyes widened. "Well…I suppose I should come up with a plan. Simon, Lewis, you go to the party with…whoever else is going. Adam, you come with me to make sure that whoever the Baron hired doesn't even get that far."

"Right, teleport!"

Adam disappeared in a flash, and Jack walked out without another word.

"He does know that's not necessary, right?" Spike said.

"I guess if he wants to do that, it's fine." Twilight looked around. "So…now what?"

()()()

"So, Mr. Altopokoleps," the Baron started, in the same location as before. It was barely a minute after Chester betrayed him, although he had seen that coming, and planned accordingly.

"Please, call me Krastos."

"Very well. Krastos, your mission is to take down the so-called 'Elements of Harmony'. I trust you know who I am referring to?"

"Of course."

"Good. I must also ask you to kill Jack, Adam, and Chester."

"Certainly."

"I also desire that you bring me some of them back alive. Specifically, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and those two British fellows."

"What about Fluttershy and Rarity?"

The Baron smiled that evil grin he always got when imagining something gruesome. "Kill them."

"Of course. I will now be leaving."

Having said everything that needed to be, Krastos let himself out, revealing the bright sunshine. He grimaced, holding up his hand to shield his eyes.

It was difficult to describe his looks, because a featureless metal mask covered his face, and a fedora kept his hair from being seen. He was wearing a solid black trenchcoat, along with pants of the same color and leather gloves. He appeared very strong, because of his almost unbelievable size and bulk.

But that's not particularly important. What was important is that he barely took a few steps down the dirt road before he heard two ponies approaching.

"That didn't take long."

He didn't move from his stance as they walked up. He had guessed who they were already, and put both hands inside of his coat, reaching for some unseen objects.

"Come on, my little ponies. Come to papa."

The instant they came over the hill, Krastos pulled his hands back out, holding two tranquilizer pistols.

"Whoa!" Dash shouted in surprise. "What are…"

He pulled the triggers, sending two small red darts towards them. The two friends didn't have time to scream before they fell to the ground, unconcious.

"That was almost too easy."

Krastos put his weapons back, and walked over to the unmoving forms.

"No, it definitely was too easy."

He picked both of them up, on in each hand, and turned back to deliver them to the Baron. From the outside, it seemed just a nondescript shed, with nothing to make it seem at all suspicious…or large enough to contain the room Krastos was just in. Still, he had seen stranger things happen.

()()()

"Come on, where are they?"

Pinkie was walking around the bakery, staring at the clock. Everyone else was there, and had begun partying without her, but two guests were still missing.

"Dashie and Jackie should have been here by now!"

"Maybe they just ran into a problem." Twilight offered, trotting up next to her.

"Well…I'm going to go look for them anyway."

Before Twilight could protest, Pinkie ran out, looking everywhere around her. She didn't see her two friends, but she did at the very least see Adam walking over to her.

"Pinkie, have you seen Rainbow Dash?" He asked, out of breath.

"I was about to ask you the same question! Well, not exactly the same question, but it would have been close enough to…"

Jack stepped up to her left. "I think he gets it. Seen anything?"

"No. I think something is definitely very wrong here."

Jack's mind immediately went to the worst possible scenario…but then he remembered the SPARTANS project, not to mention shooting that steam-powered atrocity Pinkie had become through the eye. In other words, it went from the worst possible scenario to one that was even worse than that.

"Oh, shi…I mean, we need to help them, _now_."

"What do you mean?" Pinkie asked.

Jack didn't want to say it, not to her.

"They…they might be in danger. Adam, scan the area for dark magic. I'll fly up and look around from there. Pinkie, keep everybody distracted. Things may be getting very…interesting."

"Right!"

Pinkie ran back inside, leaving Jack and Adam to themselves.

"Well, now that she's gone, I'm going to search around."

"See ya." Adam said, Jack flying up and away to search the area. "Bye!"

He stared at Jack flying away for a few moments, before closing his eyes and beginning his job. Focusing his magic on significant anomalies, he quickly noticed…nothing out of the ordinary.

"Huh." He mumbled in confusion. "I guess the Baron ain't here, then."

He started walking away, to search a different location, but a sudden wave of nausea crashed against him.

"Oh, damn it…" In his last moments of consciousness, he could feel some strange device latching around his body and pulling him up into the clouds.

()()()

"Come on, where's the Baron, where's the Baron…"

Jack had been at this for several minutes now, and hadn't seen a thing that could even vaguely be considered suspicious.

"He wouldn't have given up. He always has a backup plan, there's always something else he…"

Upon seeing the balloon, Jack promptly shut up. It vaguely resembled Twilight's (he still wondered how she got that), but rather than the two different shades of purple, it was red swirls on a background of some crudely stitched-together material he didn't recognize. But his eyes were drawn to the figure within it, one cloaked entirely in black, turned away from him. Whoever it was, he reached inside his coat, pulling something out.

"What the hell is…oh, fuck me."

The suddenness of the realization meant Jack could only watch as the harpoon, aimed squarely at him, flew towards its target. He moved out of the way in a flash, but it wasn't enough to avoid it completely.

At first, nothing. But when the searing pain blasted through his wing and up his entire body, he couldn't even scream as he plummeted to the ground, landing in a bush for the second time that day.

"Damn it!" Krastos whispered. "I missed. He is better than I thought."

But Krastos underestimated Jack's resilience. Fighting through the almost blinding agony, and a few leaves and branches, he found himself outside in the street. He had gotten shot a few times before, but it still hurt like a bitch and a half.

"Krastos. I should have known."

Jack sighed. "Shit. He's got Adam…and Dash, and AJ…why couldn't I see this coming?"

He kicked the ground, wincing in pain as his fresh wound throbbed.

"Simon and Lewis. They can help."

Jack knew the rest of the ponies would be too tired, or too injured, or simply unwilling. Simon and Lewis…they were a bit dense, but they would still be able to do it. Jack ran off to get them, hoping it wasn't too late for his newest recruit…

()()()

But Jack wasn't the only one who wanted to fight Krastos. Another man, also hired by the Baron, knew what he needed to do, what was right. And maybe if he played his cards right, he could get some extra cash as well.

"You clever bastard." Chester said, adjusting his glasses. He had just seen Adam get pulled up by a winch into a hot air balloon, owned by Krastos. He was doing something else now, something with a harpoon gun.

"What's your plan?" Chester pondered to himself, getting ready to run.

He was soon met with an answer. The pony he knew to be named Jack Edwards flew into his vision and evidently Krastos' as well. When the Grecian whisked around and fired, Chester knew that would be his chance. He fired his grappling hook at a cloud near the balloon, knowing they were very solid compared to normal boring Earth clouds.

"Let's rock and roll."

Krastos had no idea that Chester was even there, so he was totally unprepared for the kick at the back of his neck that forced him out of the balloon and almost a hundred feet to the ground. That wasn't what Chester wanted to happen at all, though, he merely wanted to faze him and get in a few more strikes, not commit first degree homicide.

"Shit!"

He peered over the side and gained…mixed feelings. Krastos wasn't dead, since he was getting up after leaving a large dent in the dirt path, but on the other hand…he was still alive.

Chester let out some hot air, forcing the balloon to lower, with Adam still in it. When he landed, two more ponies were standing beside his balloon; Simon and Lewis.

"Oh, shit," said the dwarven one, "Who are these guys now?"

"Chester!" Jack yelled. "I wouldn't have expected to see you here. Trying to share the bounty?"

Chester panicked, and waved his hands in defense, trying to offer some explanation. All that came out were random syllables.

"You're both working for the Baron?" Lewis asked.

"Get him!"

At Simon's word, they both ran forward, readying an attack on both the guilty…and the semi-innocent.

"Wait…no!" Chester insisted, to no avail. "I'm a good guy!"

"You're working for the Baron!" Simon yelled, bucking up at Krastos' chest. "You're aAAAH!"

The Greek was having none of the dwarf's nonsense, and immediately swatted him to the side like a bug. Chester began to run away, realizing that he had very little chance in this situation.

"Oh, damn it…" Lewis muttered.

"You are the ones I must defeat? This is pathetic. I could kill everyone in this village without even trying."

"I don't think so!" Lewis got into a fighting stance, prompting Krastos to laugh.

"You want to fight me? You cannot even use magic! What can you possibly threaten me with?"

"Correction; I can use magic, I just don't know how!"

"How does that change anyth-"

A bright flash, along with a loud bang, cut him short. Of course, it didn't actually affect him.

"A Flashpop? Really? You can do better than that." Krastos mocked.

"Uh…" Lewis panicked. It seemed to be the only spell he could really do, and it took a lot of focus.

"Oh, I get it!" Krastos announced. "You guessed that since you couldn't control your magic, you could use more power in an attack! You are a fool. This is how you use magic."

Lewis gulped, as Krastos brought his hands together.

"Goodbye, little pony!"

His hands separated, and a line of black smoke flew out from it towards Lewis. Upon collision, the red colt found himself flying into the wall of another building. He crumpled to the dirt road, seemingly defeated.

"And as for you…" Krastos turned around, to confront Chester, only now realizing he had left.

"Such a coward. He is no threat to me."

"YAAAH!"

Simon leaped out of nowhere, trying to buck Krastos' chest. The element of surprise prevented Krastos from reacting quick enough, and Simon's hoof made contact. If it had been a normal person, his sternum would have shattered, causing his chest to basically cave in. But Krastos was hardly normal. The attack barely made him stumble backwards.

"Ha!" He laughed. "Is that all?"

"No!" Lewis announced, suddenly getting up as well. "It's not!"

"You are still alive? How strong of you. It is a shame you shall _die!"_

"Not today!" Lewis tried to think of something else that he could do. In a moment, he got it.

"Look behind you!" he shouted.

"That trick won't work on-AAAGH!"

A large sign, displaying a quill and a sofa, slammed into the back of his head, corner-first. He stumbled, blood beginning to flow out.

"Enough!" He yelled. "I will end this!"

He pulled a machete from his coat, and waited politely for Simon to get into position next to Lewis.

"No, if anybody's gonna end this, it'll be us!"

()()()

At the same time, Chester was…elsewhere. He had managed to get back to the Baron's hideout, and was looting it for whatever he could find. In a few moments, he found exactly what he most wanted: several brand-new briefcases, stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

"Bingo!" He smiled, pulling them out of their hiding spot in the wall.

"Surely you are better than that, Chester." The Baron said, walking in out of nowhere.

"Shit!" Chester lost his balance and fell to the ground, as his ex-employer stood over him.

"Trying to steal my employee's money? I really expected more from you. First your betrayal, and now robbery. Why are you degrading yourself like this?"

"Uh…eat this!"

Chester picked up one of the briefcases and threw it towards the Baron's head, splitting open his forehead and forcing him away.

"GAH! You'll pay for that!" By the time the Baron looked up, though, Chester was long gone, along with the briefcases.

"Damnation, he escaped. And Krastos hasn't killed him already? Something is very strange…"

That's when it clicked.

"That coward! He never intended to fight Krastos! He just wanted to get away from Luna and get my money!"

The Baron screamed in anger, letting his rage be heard throughout the forest.

()()()

"Okay, gotta run, gotta run, gotta run…"

Chester was running as fast as he could away from the shack, carrying all three of the briefcases with him. He heard a scream from somewhere, Ponyville, to be exact. Something crashed, and there was yet another sound, something like an explosion.

"What the hell was that?"

He stopped running for a moment, thinking of what to do. If he left now…Simon and Lewis didn't stand a chance against Krastos, even if they were doing passably the last time he saw them.

"Damn it."

Cursing his conscious, he threw the money into a bush and ran towards them, drawing out his magic blade.

()()()

Krastos knew his victory was pretty much confirmed. His foes had fought valiantly, but it would not be much longer before their energy ran out.

They were standing in front of him now, breathing heavily. Still, they fought.

"You'll never win," Simon whispered, "we won't let you!"

"You have already lost! Why do you still fight?"

"Uh…" Simon had to admit, he wasn't sure. But even if he didn't know entirely, he still knew he had to fight.

"You are both fools! How did you even survive this far!"

Krastos prepared another explosive ball of magic, not wanting to drag the battle out even further than he already had. He was almost ready…before a red blur hit him on the back of the head. The attack dissipated, and Krastos turned around to find Chester, some sort of shield emanating from his watch.

"So, the coward has returned to die!"

"Not today!"

Chester switched the time on his watch again, drawing his sword.

"You think your puny sword can harm me?"

Chester didn't answer, only pulling back his arm to stab through Krastos. A very bad choice of attack, as Krastos merely kicked him in the gut when his arm was out of the way. Chester anticipated this, and stepped backwards when the boot made contact, but it still hurt.

He shook it off within seconds, and slashed at his opponent's head. Krastos ducked beneath it, and grabbed Chester's arm.

"I will crush you like a bug!"

He began squeezing, but of course something interrupted him, a large harpoon stabbing into his back. This was surprising, to say the least, and he released his prey to look at his assailant. Lewis' horn was glowing, and he was grinning smugly.

"I guess I can do that, too!" He said.

"How dare you…"

A blade of magic energy suddenly stabbed through his chest, shutting him up immediately.

"You are a true coward. Stabbing somebody when their back is turned."

"Yeah, well, I still win!"

"No…"

Krastos started glowing, and Chester panicked, pulling out his sword. In a moment, Krastos disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving nothing to imply anybody had stood there.

"Now, as for you…" Simon said, preparing to attack Chester as well.

"Ah…look over there!" Chester pointed to something behind them, and when they glanced away, he followed Krastos' suit and teleported somewhere else.

"There's nothing…Shit!" Lewis sighed. "Did we really fall for that?"

"Doesn't matter." Jack said, suddenly standing behind both of them. Startled, they turned to face him. "Krastos is gone and Chester probably won't be back here for a long while. Shame, that. He and Luna were pretty close all those centuries ago."

"So…party?" Simon ventured.

"I suppose."

And so, they walked back into Sugarcube Corner, where everyone had been partying so much, none of them heard any of what just transpired.

()()()

"So," The Baron began, in a backup shed he had prepared in the event of failure. "Will you be able to destroy Celestia and Luna?"

"Of course I will." Answered Tirek, hidden in shadows.

"And get me the Elements of Harmony?"

"Certainly."

"Well, that is very good. Since you will supposedly neither betray nor fail me, as Chester and Krastos did respectively, I suppose I'll have to rule with only you by my side. How would you like to have control over one of the most powerful magical locations in the multiverse?"

"It would be excellent. With this power, I can finally take over Dream Valley!"

The Baron scoffed. "Dream Valley? When you control Equestria, you will have no reason for that. Superior magic, superior technology, actual buildings…trust me, in a few years, Dream Valley will be but a memory. Speaking of which, why didn't you win the first time around?"

"They cheated. I thought I had won already, and then that damned rainbow destroyed my physical form."

"But your dark soul lived on?"

"Of course. I have learned much since then."

"Excellent. Now, then, off you go!"

In a black cloud of noxious smoke, Tirek whisked himself off to Canterlot, preparing to destroy the Sisters of the Heavens…

()()()

Ooh, a cliffhanger! Not like I haven't done more than enough of those. Anyway, the new episode came out Saturday, and it was…pretty good. Great message, as usual, pretty funny jokes (the toast alone was hilarious), and it took advantage of the paradigm shift presented last episode. Good thing, I say. A lot of episodes ended up focusing more on Twilight than anyone else, so to have more episodes focusing solely on certain characters is a very good thing.

Also, Luna happened before that. Obviously, my portrayal here is a bit…off from that, as are most of them, but I vision this as taking place quite a bit after that, so she may have had some time to change her way of speech. And of course, they had a British pony, who is awesome automatically because British accents are awesome.

That's enough rambling, this isn't a blog. Until next time, this has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


	12. An End and a Beginning

Impossibilities

Chapter Twelve

An End and a Beginning

()()()

Celestia could still barely believe what had happened just hours ago. Her student, Twilight Sparkle, was nearly killed by some unknown power, and her kingdom had nearly fallen, but both were saved by her friends…and two new ponies. After giving them her blessing, she tried to focus back on the letter from Twilight, but could not help but think…who was the Baron? Where did he come from? What did he want with Equestria?

Eventually, the letter was pushed into the background, questions and concerns reeling through Celestia's head faster than they could possibly ever be answered. And so, she remained in this state for quite some time, until a knock on her door broke her free from the self-induced trance.

"Sister?" Luna's voice called. "I have urgent news!"

"Please, come in!" Celestia forced, speaking so fast it was hard to interpret what she said.

A wave of starry blue energy encased the door, and it swung open, revealing a quite out-of-breath alicorn standing there.

"Good heavens, Luna, are you okay?"

Celestia had managed to get back to Earth, and was, needless to say, worried. Luna rarely got this…active about anything, and seeing her in this state immediately told Celestia that something was horribly wrong.

"No, I'm not. Do you remember my…old friend?"

"I do recall him, yes."

Luna sighed. "Someone hired him to assassinate me."

"What?" Celestia's eyes widened in horror. "Who?"

"I am not sure how to describe it. Whatever it was, it was…not of our form. I believe he was called…Schadenfreude?"

Celestia immediately felt her blood turn to ice in her veins.

"What happened? Where is he?" Celestia demanded.

"There is more. He said that we were in great danger from some ancient evil."

"What? If I have heard of it, we may be able to prepare."

"He called it…Tirek."

This was the final word. Celestia's worst fears had been realized. As her eyes widened and she stumbled backwards, the whole world seemed to spin.

"Sister?…SISTER!"

Luna ran over, trying to help her sister back on her hooves.

"We cannot allow Tirek to win!"

"Why not? Who is Tirek?"

Celestia stared at her sister, as she began explaining.

"A long time ago, before either of us were even alive, the land of Equestria was very different. It was not referred to as Equestria, but rather…Ponyland."

"Ponyland? Not terribly creative…"

"Where we live now used to be called Dream Valley, though it was much different. For one, there were humans there."

"Humans?"

"I believe it would be safe to assume that they are what you saw."

"What else?"

Celestia looked away.

"For a time, they lived in peace, but a great and powerful demon arose from his dark castle, and turned several ponies into dragons, so he could use his chariot to lay darkness across the land. The only thing that could stop him was a magical artifact called the 'Rainbow of Light'. Without it, there was no hope. It survived after Tirek's defeat, but eventually, it dissipated."

"And since he has returned…" Luna reasoned, "Nothing can stop him."

"No…we must stand and fight, Luna. We can defeat him…together."

Shutting her eyes, Luna turned away.

"I am not so sure."

"I am."

Luna looked back, and saw Celestia smiling.

"Even without the Rainbow, I know that if we work together, as sisters, Tirek cannot be victorious."

"Are you sure?"

Celestia nodded. "Of course I am sure."

"Then let us prepare."

They gave each other a nod, and quickly walked out of the room, not saying another word, as they knew what to do already. They had prepared for such an occasion long ago, and now was the time.

When they got to the entrance room of the tower, a large, open area, the tiled floor split into two halves: in one stood Celestia, wearing glorious shining armor, the subjects below her basking in the sun's radiant glow. In the other stood Luna, wearing similar armor, giving the inhabitants of Equestria knowledge and the wisdom to put it to use.

"Are you ready?" Celestia asked.

Luna hesitated, but gave a small nod.

The time was now. The two sisters of the heavens stepped onto their appropriate sections of the tiled floor, Celestia upon the bright day and Luna upon the muted night. They paused for a moment, collecting their energy, and then touched their horns together.

To an outsider, the next moment would have been almost impossible to describe. The mosaic on the floor seemed to move up, and an impossibly bright light, even brighter than the day, emanated from the point where the horns touched. When it cleared, they were wearing the armor, exactly like in the mural.

"We must stop him before he reaches Canterlot," Celestia said. "I believe I can feel his presence, in the forest."

"Then we must go there at once!" Luna cried.

"Calm, sister. We must be ready. We cannot afford to simply rush in head-on."

"A plan? Of what manner?"

"I have an idea. Listen…"

()()()

"Excellent. Off you go, then!"

In a black cloud of noxious smoke, Tirek whisked himself off to Canterlot, preparing to destroy the sisters of the heavens…who immediately teleported in his place.

If the Baron was afraid, he did nothing to show it.

"Luna…Celestia. So nice that you could make it. Would you like some tea? I have the most lovely Earl Grey."

Celestia ignored him, and began an impromptu interrogation.

"What trickery is this? Where is Tirek?"

"Oh, drat, you just missed him! Although I am sure he will soon be returning…"

Schadenfreude looked behind them, intentionally making sure they would notice, and smiled. The two sisters turned, and immediately moved out of the way (and away from each other) as a black cloud struck where they were standing. Bits of ground and grass flew up from it, and they couldn't help but cringe when they saw who was standing there.

It was a centaur, to put it simply. The fur on the horse part of its body was blue, whereas the human section had red fur. Both of them had white tattoos running across them, symbolic of the magic he was able to use. He was wearing a chestplate, and a belt at the base of his torso, along with a brown bag attached to a necklace. Further than that, he had two very large, cow-like horns, jutting out from a dark blue mop that was connected to a large beard.

"Hello." He sneered. "Have we met?"

"I cannot say we have." Celestia countered.

"Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to make my introduction. I…am…TIREK!"

His voice boomed throughout the forest, so loud at its origin that the sisters' hair was blown back. The Baron, however, was unfazed, not even bothering to protect his hat.

"I shall leave you fine people to your own devices. Cheers!"

Without so much as a flash of light, he disappeared, leaving only three behind.

"You shall not win, Tirek!" Celestia cried out, readying a powerful spell to strike him.

The centaur merely laughed. "Oh, I'm so afraid! What are you going to do, friendship me to death?"

"No." Luna stated. "Much worse than that."

Tirek roared again, and ran at Celestia, pointing his horns straight at her neck. This "attack", if you are generous enough to refer to it as that, was easily dodged.

"You shall have to do better than that!" Luna yelled, casting an ice spell at him. It found its mark, but did nothing

"Oh, Luna. Your pathetic little spells will have no effect on me!"

Another magical attack hit him in the neck, again, an ice spell. It worked, and Tirek soon realized much of his back had been encased in ice.

"Perhaps mine, then?" Celestia asked mockingly.

Tirek grimaced, before flexing his powerful shoulder muscles and shattering the ice.

"No. Now, would you be so kind as to let me try one of my own?"

Tirek spread his arms out, and even Celestia was shocked as the horse part of his body literally dissolved, turning him from a centaur to a satyr.

"There. Now it should be much easier to crush you!" He shouted, the sky beginning to darken above.

()()()

"Aw, YEAH!" Pinkie shouted, dancing around like an idiot with a lampshade on her head. "This is a party!"

That was how it was going; nobody particularly cared, nobody could even hear much of anything. They were all just having a good time. Even Jack had gotten somewhat in the swing of things. But moments after Pinkie's observation, something happened that got everybody to stop immediately; a bolt of thunder, powerful enough to shake the town to its very foundations.

Immediately, the party ground to a halt, the DJ stopped her record, and everything went dead silent. For a moment, no one did a thing, and then Jack spoke up.

"Everypony out, NOW!"

Having realized the party was quite thoroughly over, every single pony inside filed outside, and as they did, a sense of dread washed over them all.

"Oh…no." Twilight whispered.

Far off in the distance, a mass of storm clouds as black as night had collected, spitting out thunder and lightning at quick intervals. And far below them were three magical beings, locked in mortal combat. Though the ponies outside Sugarcube Corner couldn't see it, it didn't take a lot to guess what was going on from the bright flashes of color that occasionally erupted from the eye of the growing storm.

"Tirek." Jack whispered.

()()()

If any of them could see what was going on, it wouldn't have helped much. The three were moving around in a complex dance, firing spells and incantations at each other in such a way that a lesser pony would have no idea what was happening.

This process, this dance of death, continued on for several minutes before they stopped, each standing quite a distance from each other, Tirek standing right below the storm's eye.

"Getting tired?" He asked.

The sisters said nothing, instead preparing another spell. Tirek laughed at this…and continued laughing.

"You…you simply refuse to give up! You just don't stop!"

Unseen by him, Luna nodded to her sister, who nodded back and bent her head.

"Can't you realize that you've failed?"

"The thing about that is…we have not!" Luna cried, bowing her head as well. Before Tirek knew what they were doing, a bolt of lightning erupted from their horns, coursing straight through him and the bag around his neck.

"Wha…no! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

"That's where you keep your things, isn't it?" Celestia asked. "Your magic power?"

He never got a chance to answer, as a thread of physical darkness seeped out of his sack. He desperately tried to contain it, but it was no use. As more of it escaped, he himself seemed to dissipate, and the storm clouds as well. Within a minute, he was gone entirely and the only evidence he had stood there at all was the shredded bag, lying there harmlessly.

"Have we won?" Luna ventured.

"I believe. Since he is so old, the magic contained within that bag was the only thing keeping his physical form intact. Normally, we could not have harmed it, but this armor focused our magic. We could perform fewer spells, but they were more powerful."

"That was clever, with the lightning."

Celestia smiled. "Thank you."

"Princess! What happened?" Twilight yelled, running into the clearing alongside Jack and Adam.

"Do not worry, my student. We are safe, as is Equestria."

"Tirek?" Jack asked, gesturing at the bag.

"Indeed."

"Tirek…" Twilight mumbled. "I remember reading something about that! Some kind of…ancient legend, older than Equestria itself." Her eyes widened. "It was true?"

Celestia smiled. "You will often find many legends have some truth to them, Twilight. Now, Luna and I must return to Canterlot."

"Actually…" Jack began, "There's something I learned."

"Oh? And that would be?"

"See…at first, I thought that certain elements were less…useful than others, either in general or because of the ponies that represented them. But today's events proved me completely wrong. They all have their use, and what is useful in one situation may not be useful in another, and together, they are greater than any one of them on their own. As long as they're around, I know that your kingdom will be safe."

"Of course it will."

The sisters closed their eyes, and in a flash and a puff of smoke, they were gone, as was the bag.

"Well, that's the end of that, I guess." Jack said, turning towards the stallion at his side. "Adam, have you figured out how to get Simon and Lewis home?"

"Yep!"

"Go do that. I'll meet up with you." Adam teleported away, and Jack turned back towards Twilight. "If we need you again, we'll let you know."

With a powerful thrust of his wings, Jack flew off, leaving Twilight in the clearing, looking up at the parting clouds.

()()()

Everything was…a blur, simply put. They didn't know what was going on, they didn't know what day it was, they barely even recalled their own names.

"Lewis…what just happened?" Simon asked, staring blankly at his computer screen.

"I…have no fucking idea what that was. There was, like, ponies or something, and then some British guy, and a party…"

They sat in silence for a few moments, before the full details of the events exploded back to them.

"Oh my God, Lewis, we were ponies!"

"Yeah…wait a second, this isn't spring!"

Lewis had taken a glance out of his window, and there was still snow on the ground. He glanced at the calendar on the wall, and it was actually several months before they had left.

"We…traveled back in time, Lewis?"

"Yeah…I have an e-mail!"

He opened it up, and it read thus:

Heya, guys, this is ElectricalBeast. Sorry about the time travel; Equestria and Earth have very different timestreams. However, you might like to take advantage of this. See, since a lot of people like My Little Pony, you may very well do some Minecraft thing based on it, like, for example, Sunshine of Israpony? With Fumblemore and Knight Peculier and all of them? There's an official My Little Pony mod out now, and don't worry, it won't teleport you. In fact, one server made an entire My Little Pony themed world, and if you played around with that a bit, you could do some pretty cool stuff!

Cheers!

Simon gawked. "Sunshine of Israpony?"

"That actually sounds like it could be pretty fun, with, like, Technic Pack and that My Little Pony thing he mentioned."

"Well, knowing us, we'll probably blow it up with a nuclear reactor."

They laughed.

"Should…should we start planning for that?" Lewis asked.

"If you want, I'm cool with it!"

And so, the two friends started bouncing some ideas off each other.

()()()

A week later…

"Celestia!" Came the cry of a guard, bursting into the throne room. "I have urgent news!"

"What?" She asked, stepping down to the floor.

"The Discord statue…it's been stolen!"

"WHAT!" She cried. "Who is responsible for this!"

"Whoever it was, he left a note."

The guard pulled it out, and Celestia opened it up with her magic.

" 'I can understand if you are worried as to what I will do with these, but do not fear. I shall not bother you for some time, at least not until my latest plan comes to its fruition. Signed, the Baron Vlad Klaus Von Schadenfreude."

She grimly set it down, and looked up to the sky.

"Please, Jack." She whispered. "You must not fail."

()()()

The man himself was sitting in a viewing room, much like the Baron's own, going back over some movies he felt he needed some refreshing on. Adam was sitting next to him.

"JACK! ADAM!" A large, boisterous British voice, much like Brian Blessed's, called to them from outside. Jack paused the movie, and told him to come in.

Immediately, the door flew open with such strength that it nearly came of its hinges. Standing in the frame was a very large man, dressed in the regalia of a World War II RAF pilot, an exaggerated moustache stuck on his pudgy face.

"Dammit, Rothschild, can't it wait?" Jack demanded.

"I'm afraid not, old bean! This arrived in the post just this morning!" He pulled out a letter and gave it to Jack. The imprint on the black wax seal, a two-headed raven, instantly told him who it was from. Without hesitance, he tore it open, and began reading it aloud.

" 'To whom it may concern:

You may have foiled my plan to take over Equestria, Jack, but I'm not the kind of guy to just give up, and I thought I would tell you that the game is afoot yet again. In precisely three days, I shall begin anew. I won't tell you where, of course, but I think I've given you enough clues. I also shall tell you that I am not alone; I have an…old friend with me, who should be quite useful. Sincerely, the Baron Vlad Klaus Von Schadenfreude."

Once complete, Jack wasted no time in working it out.

"Clues…the game is afoot…Sherlock Holmes, of course. Further than that, the Baron would never use the word 'guy', he would use man or person. Sherlock Holmes…guy…" he snapped his fingers. "Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes!"

"Well, now that you know what he's planning, what shall we do?" Rothschild wondered.

"Rothschild, you get the biplane up and running. Adam, you get Twilight and Dash. As for me…I'll go get us armed."

()()()

To be continued…

()()()

Merry late Christmas, everybody! Yeah, I saw Game of Shadows, and I quite liked it. So, I thought, why not do something with that? Something…steampunk, perchance? It'll be a while, but you'll get it. Until then, this has been AwkwardVulpix, over and out.


End file.
